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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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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Human origins
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Laing, Samuel [1812-1897]
Clodd, Edward [1840-1930]
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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.
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No. 50.—R.P.A. CHEAP REPRINTS
With 56 Illustrations
k
.
a?
|
6
g 1 DEC ^18
I
........... -!
THE KINGDOM
OF MAN
'»a^i
BY SIR RAY LANKESTER
•
NEW AND REVISED EDITION
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
.......................
ALSO IN CLOTH, ONE SHILLING NET
i
■ -7=
�Cranial Dome of Pitheoanthr opus erectus from river gravel in Java.
Skull of a Greek from an ancient cemetery.
�THE
KINGDOM OF MAN
BY
E. RAY LANKESTEB, K.G.B., M.A., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S.
HONORARY FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE AND HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH,
OXFORD; MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE ; EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON J LATE PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH
ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE J LATE
DIRECTOR OF THE NATURAL HISTORY DEPARTMENTS
OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
[issued
for the rationalist press association, limited]
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.O.
1912
�SIR RAY LANKESTER’S POPULAR
BOOKS ON SCIENCE.
EXTINCT ANIMALS.
With a portrait of the author and 218 illustrations. New
Edition, 1909 ; price 2s. 6d. (Constable and Co.)
The Times says: “There has been published no book on this
subject combining so successfully the virtues of accuracy and
' attractiveness.”
The Athenceum says: “Described with a masterly hand.”
SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR.
Fifth Edition, 1911; price 6s.
(Methuen and Co.)
A series of chapters selected from the well-known weekly articles
by the author originally published in the Daily Telegraph, revised
and illustrated by numerous drawings. The subjects treated
include Darwin’s Theory, the Story of the Common Eel, the
Dragon, Oysters, Sleep, Comets, Tadpoles, Gossamer, Hop-blight,
the Most Ancient Men, and many others.
THE EASY CHAIR SERIES.
By
SIR RAY LANKESTER, K.C.B., F.R.S.
Annual volumes similar in origin and character to the preceding
are in preparation. The first, now ready for press, illustrated with
numerous plates and text-figures, is entitled
DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST,
Price 6s., and will be published by Simpkin and Marshall,
Paternoster Row, London, in July, 1912.
A few copies of the First (Library) Edi
tion of “The Kingdom of Man” may
still be procured, price 2s. 6d. net
(inland postage 5d.).
(Watts & Co.)
�DESCRIPTION OE THE FRONTISPIECE.
The upper figure is from a cast of the celebrated specimen found in a river gravel in Java, probably
of as great age as the palaeolithic gravels of Europe. Though rightly to be regarded as a “ man,” the
creature which possessed this skull has been given the n&me Pithecanthropus. The shape of the cranial
dome differs from that of a well-developed European human skull (shown in the lower photograph, that
of a Greek skull) in the same features as do the very ancient prehistoric skulls from the Belgian caves
of Spey, and from the Neanderthal of the Rhineland. These differences are, however, measurably
greater in the Javanese skull.
The three great features of difference are: (1) the great size of the eyebrow ridges (the part below
and in front of A in the figures) in the Java skull; (2) the much greater relative height of the middle and
back part of the cranial dome (lines e and/) in the Greek skull; (3) the much greater prominence in the
Greek skull of the front part of the cranial dome—the prefrontal area or frontal “ boss ” (the part in
front of the line A C, the depth of which is shown by the line d).
The parts of the cranial cavity thus obviously more capacious in the Greek skull are precisely those
which are small in the Apes, and overlie those convolutions of the brain which have been specially
developed in Man as compared with the highest Apes.
The line A B in both the figures is the ophryo-tentorial line. It is drawn from the ophryon (the
mid-joint in the line drawn across the narrowest part of the frontal bone just above the eyebrow ridges),
.Which corresponds externally to the most anterior limit of the brain, to the extra-tentorial point
(between the occipital ridges), and is practically the base line of the cerebrum. The lines e and / are
perpendiculars on this base line, the first half-way between A and B, the second half-way between the
first and the extra-tentorial point.
C is the point known to craniologists as “ bregma,” the meeting point of the frontal and the two
parietal bones. .
The line A C is drawn as a straight line joining A and C; but if the skull is accurately posed it
corresponds to the edge of the plane at right angles to the sagittal plane of the skull—which traverses
both bregma (C) and ophryon (A)—and where it “cuts” the skull marks off the prefrontal area or boss,
(See for the full-face view of this area in the two skulls Figs. 1 and 2.) The line d is a perpendicular let
fall from the point of greatest prominence of the prefrontal area on to the prefrontal plane. It indicates
the depth of the prefrontal cerebral region. Drawn on both sides on the surface of the bone and looked
at from the front (the white dotted line in Figs. 1 and 2), it gives the maximum breadth of the prefrontal
area.
By dividing the ophryo-tentorial line into 100 units, and using those units as measures, the depths of
the brain cavity in the regions plumbed by the lines d, e, and/ can be expressed numerically and their
differences in a series of skulls stated in percentage of the ophryo-tentorial length.
�WONDERS are many ! And none is there greater than Man, who
Steers his ship over the sea driven on by the south wind,
Cleaving the threatening swell of the waters around him,
Wears away year after year with deeply-cut furrows,
Wears as he drags the sharp plough to and fro with his horses,
Th’ Earth-mother, eldest of Gods, inexhaustible, ceaseless.
He captures the gay-hearted birds ; he entangles adroitly
Creatures that live on the land and the brood of the ocean,
Spreading his well-woven nets. Man full of devices !
The beasts of the forest, the cattle that roam on the moorland
Artfully hath he subdued, and the shaggy-maned horses;
Yokes grip the necks of the masterful bulls of the mountain.
Speech and swift thought free as wind, the building of cities,
Shelters to ward off the arrows of rain and to temper
Sharp-biting frost—all these hath he taught himself. Surely
Stratagem hath he for all that comes 1 Never the future
Finds him resourceless ! Deftly he combats grievous diseases,
Oft from their grip doth he free himself. Death alone vainly—
Vainly he seeks to escape; ’gainst Death he is helpless.
Man with his skill past belief and his endless invention
Oft reaches happiness ; oft stumbles on to disaster.
Chorus from the “Antigone" of Sophocles.
�Contents
PAGE
Chapter
I—NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
1
Chapter II.—THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE (1881-1906)
.
.
.
CHAPTER III.—NATURE’S REVENGES: THE SLEEPING SICKNESS'
.
37
.
95
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Frontispiece
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Profile views of the
Cranial Dome of Pithe
canthropus erectus, the
ape-like man from an
ancient river gravel in
Java, and of a Greek
skull
1.—-Frontal view of the Cranial
Dome of Pithecanthropus
2.—Frontal view of the same
Greek skull as that shown in
the frontispiece
3.—-Eoliths, of “ borer ” shape,
from Ightham, Kent .
4.—Eoliths of trinacrial shape,
from Ightham, Kent .
5.—Brain casts of four large
Mammals ....
6.—Spironema pallidum, the
microbe of syphilis dis
covered by Fritz Schaudinn .
7.—The Canals in Mars
8.—The Canals in Mars
9.—Becquerel's shadow - print
obtained by rays from
Uranium Salt
10.—Diagrams of the visible lines
of the Spectrum given by
incandescent Helium and
Radium
....
11.—The transformation of Ra
dium Emanation into Helium
(spectra)
....
Fig. 12. —Dry-plate photograph of a
Nebula and surrounding stars
Jelly-fish
Limnocodium
14. —Polyp of Limnocodium
15. —Sense-organ of Limnocodium
16. —The Freshwater Jelly-fish of
Lake Tanganyika
17. —Sir Harry Johnston’s speci
men of the Okapi
18. —Bandoliers cut from the
striped skin of the Okapi
19. —Skull of the horned male of
the Okapi ....
20. —The metamorphosis of the
young of the common Eel .
21. —A unicellular parasite of the
common Octopus, producing
spermatozoa
22. —The Coccidium, a microscopic
parasite of the Rabbit, pro
ducing spermatozoa
23. —Spermatozoa of a unicellular
parasite inhabiting a Centi
pede .....
24. —The motile fertilising ele
ments (antherozoids or sper
matozoa) of a peculiar cone
bearing tree, the Gycas revoluta .....
25. —The gigantic extinct Reptile
Triceratops ....
26. —A large carnivorous Reptile
PAGE
51
Fig. 13. —The Freshwater
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
9
Fig.
Fig.
9
Fig.
10
Fig.
11
Fig.
13
Fig.
21
24
25
Fig.
41
Fig.
43
Fig.
47
Fig.
vii
54
54
54
54
56
56
56
57
59
59
59
59
60
�viii
CONTENTS
PAGE
from the Triassic rocks of
North Russia
...
FIG. 27.—The curious &sh Drepanaspis,
from the Old Red Sandstone
of Germany ....
FIG. 28.—The oldest Fossil Fish known
FIG. 29.—The skull and lower jaw of
the ancestral Elephant,
Palceomastodon, from Egypt
FIG. 30.—The latest discovered skull of
Palaiomastodon ...
FIG. 31.—Skulls of Meritherium, an
Elephant ancestor, from the
Upper Eocene of Egypt
.
FIG. 32.—The nodules on the roots of
bean-plants and the nitrogen
fixing microbe, Bacillus
radicola, which produces
them .....
FIG. 33.—The continuity of the proto
plasm of vegetable cells
.
FIG. 34.—Diagram of the structures
present in a typical organic
“cell”
....
FIG. 35.—The number of the Chromo
somes .....
FIG. 36.—The number of the Chromo
somes .....
FIGS. 37-42.—Phagocytes engulfing
disease germs — drawn by
Metschnikoff
...
PAGE
FIG. 43.—A Phagocyte containing three
61
Spirilla, the germs of relaps
ing fever, which it has en
gulfed
.... 81
61 FIG. 44.—The life-history of the Malaria
61
Parasite
.... 84
FIG. 45.—The first blood-cell parasite
described, the Lankesterella
62
of Frog’s blood ... 86
FIG. 46.—Various kinds of Trypano
63
somes .......................................... 87
FIG. 47.—The Laboratory of the Marine
Biological Association on the
64
Citadel Hill, Plymouth
. 93
FIG. 48.—The Tsetze fly, Glossina
morsitans .... 103
FIG. 49.—The Trypanosome of Frog’s
blood ..... 104
66 FIG. 50.—’The Trypanosome which
causes the Sleeping Sickness 105
67 FIG. 51.—The Trypanosome of the
disease called “ Dourine ” . 106
FIGS. 52-56.—Stages in the growth and
68
multiplication of a Trypano
some which lives for part of
69
its life in the blood of the
little owl Athene noctua,
76
and for the other part in the
gut of the common gnat
(Gulex)
.
.
.
107-10
81
�PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
This little volume is founded on three discourses which I have slightly
modified for the pfesent purpose, and have endeavoured to render
interesting by the introduction of illustrative process blocks, which are
described sufficiently fully to form a large extension of the original text.
The first, entitled “ Nature’s Insurgent Son,” formed, under another
title, the Romanes lecture at Oxford in 1905. Its object is to exhibit
in brief the “Kingdom of Man,” to show that there is undue neglect in
the taking over of that possession by mankind, and to urge upon our
Universities the duty of acting the leading part in removing that
neglect.
The second is an account, which served as the presidential address
to the British Association at York in 1906, of the progress made in the
last quarter of a century towards the assumption of his kingship by
slowly-moving Man.
The third, reprinted from the Quarterly Review, is a more detailed
account of recent attempts to deal with a terrible disease—the Sleeping
Sickness of tropical Africa—and furnishes an example of one of the
innumerable directions in which Man brings down disaster on his head
by resisting the old rule of selection of the fit and destruction of the
unfit, so that he is painfully forced to the conclusion that knowledge of
Nature must be sought and control of her processes eventually obtained.
I am glad to be able to state that as a result of the representations of the
Tropical Diseases Committee of the Royal Society, and, as I am told,
in some measure in consequence of the explanation of the state of
things given in this essay, funds have been provided by the Colonial
Office for the support of a professorship of Protozoology in the University
of London, to which Mr. E. A. Minchin has been appointed. It is
recognised that the only way in which we can hope to deal effectually
with such diseases as the Sleeping Sickness is by a greatly increased
knowledge of the nature and life-history of the parasitic Protozoa which
produce those diseases.
I have to thank Mr. John Murray for permission to reprint the
article on Sleeping Sickness, and I am also greatly indebted to scientific
ix
�X
PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION
colleagues for assistance in the survey of progress given in the second
discourse. Among these I desire especially to mention Mr. Frederick
Soddy, F.B.S., Professor H. H. Turner, F.B.S., Professor Sydney
Vines, F.B.S., Mr. MacDougal of Oxford, and Professor Sherrington,
F.B.S. To Mr. Perceval Lowell I owe my thanks for permission to
copy two of his drawings of Mars, and to the Boyal Astronomical
Society for the loan of the star-picture on p. 51.
E. Bay Lankester,
•
January, 1907,
PBEFACE TO THE PBESENT EDITION
The publication of a cheap edition of the Kingdom of Man has made
it necessary for me to revise the text so far as to alter here and there
the terms of reference to events and discoveries which are now six
years older than they were when the book was first printed. I have
made some of these corrections in the text and inserted others as
footnotes enclosed in square brackets, and have also drawn attention to
some newly ascertained facts, and to recent events which bear upon
statements made in the earlier edition. An improved figure showing
the relative size of the cerebral hemispheres in the extinct mammal
Dinoceras and large mammals now living has been substituted for that
previously published.
I have willingly agreed to the proposal of the Bationalist Press
Association to issue this book in a form and at a price which render it
readily accessible to a large body of readers, since, next to the search for
new knowledge, there is no enterprise in which I so gladly take part as
that of endeavouring to assist others to gain an acquaintance with the
results of the investigation of Nature and an understanding of the
supreme importance of that investigation to mankind.
E. Bay Lankester,
Boiirnemouth, February, 1912.
�THE KINGDOM OF MAN
Chapter I.
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
same at the present day as it has been
in the past: as commonly used, it is a
word of varied meanings and limita
tions, so that misconception and con
fusion is liable to be associated with
it. By the professed student of modern
sciences it is usually understood as a
name for the entire mechanism of the
universe, the kosmos in all its parts;
and it is in this sense that I use it.
But many still identify “ Nature ” with
a limited portion of that great system,
and even retain for it a special appli
cation to the animals and plants of
this earth and their immediate sur
roundings. Thus we have the term
“natural history,” and the French
term les sciences naturelies, limited to
the study of the more immediate and
concrete forms of animals, plants, and
crystals. There is some justification
for separating the conception of Nature
as specially concerned in the produc
tion and maintenance of living things
from that larger Nature which em
braces, together with this small but
deeply significant area, the whole ex
panse of the heavens in the one direc
tion, and Man himself in the other.
2.—The Word “Nature.”
Giordano Bruno, who a little more
The signification attached to the than three hundred years ago visited
word “Nature” is by no means the Oxford and expounded his views, was
1.—The Outlook.
It has become more and more a
matter of conviction to me—and I
believe that I share that conviction
with a large body of fellow students
both in this country and other civilised
States—that the time has arrived when
the true relation of Nature to Man
has been so clearly ascertained that it
should be more generally known than
is at present the case, and that this
knowledge should form far more largely
than it does at this moment the object
of human activity and endeavour—that
it should be, in fact, the guide of State
government, the trusted basis of the
development of human communities.
That it is not so already, that men
should still allow their energies to run
in other directions, appears to some of
us a thing so monstrous, so injurious
to the prosperity of our fellow men,
that we must do what lies within our
power to draw attention to the con
ditions and circumstances which attend
this neglect, the evils arising from it,
and the benefits which must follow
from its abatement.
�2
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON '
perhaps the first to perceive and teach
the unity of this greater Nature, anti
cipating thus, in his prophetic vision,
the conclusion which we now accept
as the result of an accumulated mass
of evidence. Shakespeare came into
touch with Bruno’s conception, and
has contrasted the more limited and a
larger (though not the largest) view of
Nature in the words of Perdita and
Polyxenes. Says Perdita:—
.......the fairest flowers o’ the season
Are our carnations, and streak’d gillyvors,
Which some call Nature’s bastards; of that
kind
Our rustic garden’s barren ; and I care not
To get slips of them.......For I have heard it
said,
There is an art which, in their piedness,
shares
With great creating nature.
To which Polyxenes replies :—
Say there be—
Yet nature is made better by no mean,
But nature makes that mean; so, over that
art,
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid,
we marry
A gentle scion to the wildest stock ;
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race ; this is an art
Which does mend nature—change it, rather :
but
The art itself is nature.
The larger proportion of so-called
educated people even at the present
day have not got beyond Perdita’s
view of Nature. They regard the
territory of Nature as a limited one,
the playground or sport of all sorts of
non-natural demons and fairies, spirits
and occult agencies. Apart from any
definite scheme or conception of these
operations, they personify Nature, and
attribute a variety of virtues and ten
dencies to her for which there is no
justification. We are told, according
to the fancy of the speaker, that such
a course is in accordance with Nature;
that another course is contrary to
Nature; we are urged to return to
Nature, and we are also urged to resist
Nature. We hear that Nature will
find a remedy for every ill, that Nature
is just, that Nature is cruel, that
Nature is sweet and our loving mother.
On the one hand, Man is regarded as
outside of and opposed to Nature, and
his dealings are contrasted favourably
or unfavourably with those of Nature.
On the other hand, we are informed
that Man must, after all, submit to
Nature, and that it is useless to oppose
her. These contradictory views are,
in fact, fragments of various systems
of philosophy of various ages, in which
the word “ Nature ” has been assigned
equally various limitations and exten
sions. Without attempting to discuss
the history and justification of these
different uses of the word “ Nature,”
I think that I may here use the word
“ Nature ” as indicating the entire
kosmos of which this cooling globe,
with all upon it, is a portion.
3.—Na trnre-S earc hers.
The discovery of regular processes,
of expected effects following upon
specified antecedents, of constant pro
perties and qualities in the material
around him, has from the earliest
recorded times been a chief occupation
of Man, and has led to the attainment
by Man of an extraordinarily complex
control of the conditions in which his
life is carried on. But it was not until
Bruno’s conception of the unity of
terrestrial nature with that of the
kosmos had commended itself that a
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
3
knowledge of Greek grammar is the
traditional and immemorial occupation
of Oxford students, that until the
modern days of the eighteenth century
(“ modern ” in the history of Oxford)
Greek was less known in Oxford than
Hebrew is at present, and that the
study of Nature—Nature-knowledge
and Nature-control—was the appro
priate occupation of her learned men.
It is, indeed, a fact that the very
peculiar classical education at present
insisted on in Oxford, and imposed by
her on the public schools of .the
country, is a modern innovation, an
unintentional and, in a biological
sense, “morbid” outgrowth of that
“ Humanism ” to which a familiarity
with the dead languages was, but is no
1 The foundation, of the Royal Society, of
London is most intimately connected with longer, the pathway.
deliberate and determined investigation
of natural processes, with a view to
tfteir more complete apprehension, was
Instituted. One of the earliest and most
active steps in this direction was the
foundation, less than 250 years ago,
of the Royal Society of London for
the Promotion of Natural Knowledge,
by a body of students who had organ
ised their conferences and inquiries
whilst resident in Oxford.1
All over Western Europe such asso
ciations or academies for the building
up of the New Philosophy (as it was
called here) came into existence. It is
a fact which is strangely overlooked at
the present day, when the assumption
is made that the acquirement of a
the University of Oxford. Dr. Wallis, an
original member, writes :—“ I take its first
ground and foundation to have been in
London about the year 1645, when Dr.
Wilkins and others met weekly at a certain
day and hour........About the year 1648-9
some of our company were removed to Oxford;
first Dr. Wilkins, then I, and soon after Dr.
Goddard. Those in London continued to
meet there as before (and we with them, when
we had occasion to be there), and those of us
at Oxford; with Dr. Ward (since Bishop of
Salisbury), Dr. Ralph Bathurst (now Presi
dent of Trinity College in Oxford), Dr. Petty
(since Sir William Petty), Dr. Willis (then
an eminent physician in Oxford), and divers
others, continued such meetings in Oxford
and brought those studies into fashion there ;
meetings first at Dr. Petty’s lodgings (in an
apothecarie’s house) because of the con
venience of inspecting drugs and the like, as
there was occasion; and after his remove to
Ireland (though not so constantly) at the
lodgings of Dr. Wilkins, then Warden of
Wadham College, and after his removal to
Trinity College in Cambridge, at the lodg
ings of the Honourable Mr. Robert Boyle,
then resident for divers years in Oxford........
In the meanwhile our company at Gresham
College being much again increased by the
accession of divers eminent and noble persons,
I Upon His Majesty’s return we were (about the
beginning of the year 1662) by His Majesty’s
I grace and favour incorporated by the name
of the Royal Society.”
4.—The Doctrine of Evolution.
What is sometimes called the scien
tific movement, but may be more
appropriately described as the Nature
searching movement, rapidly attained
an immense development. In the
latter half of the last century this
culminated in so complete a know
ledge of the movements of the heavenly
bodies, their chemical nature and phy
sical condition—so detailed a determi
nation of the history of the crust of this
earth and of the living things upon it,
of the chemical and physical processes
which go on in Man and other living
things, and of the structure of Man as
compared with the animals most like
him, and of the enormous length of
time during which Man has existed on
the earth—that it became possible to
establish a general doctrine of the
evolution of the kosmos, with more
special detail in regard to the history
�4
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
of this earth and the development of
Man from a lower animal ancestry.
Animals were, in their turn, shown to
have developed from simplest living
matter, and this from less highly
elaborated compounds of chemical
‘elements” differentiated at a still
earlier stage of evolution. There is,
it may be said without exaggeration,
no school or body of thinkers at the
present day who are acquainted with
the facts now ascertained which denies
the orderly evolution of the kosmos by
the* regular operation of a more or less
completely ascertained series of proper
ties resident in the material of which
it consists.1 The process of evolution
—the interaction of these ascertainable,
if not fully ascertained properties—has
led (it is held), in the case of the cool
ing cinder which we call the earth, by
an inevitable and predestined course,
to the formation of that which we call
living matter, and eventually of Man
himself. From this process all dis
orderly or arbitrary interferences must,
it seems, be excluded. The old fancies
as to presiding demons or fairies—
which, it was imagined, had for their
business to interrupt the supposed
feeble and limited efforts of Nature,
as yet unexplored and unappreciated
—have passed out of mind. The con
sensus is complete: Man is held to be
a part of Nature, a product of the
definite and orderly evolution which
is universal; a being resulting from
and driven by the one great nexus of
mechanism which we call Nature.
He stands alone, face to face with
that relentless mechanism. It is his
destiny to understand and to control it.
5.— Unwarranted Inferences from
the Evolution of Man.
There are not wanting those who,
accepting this conclusion, seek to
belittle Man and endeavour to repre
sent that the veil is lifted, that all is
explained,” obvious, commonplace,
and mean in regard to the significance
of life and of Man, because it has
become clear that the kosmic process
has brought them forth in due order.
There are others who rightly perceive
that life is no common property of our
cooling matter, but unique and excep
tional, and that Man stands apart from
and above all natural products, whether
animate or inanimate. Some of these
thinkers appear to accept the conclu
sion that if life and Man are regarded
as products of the kosmic process—
that is, of Nature—“ life ” and “ Man ”
lose so much in importance and signi
ficance that dire consequences must
follow to Man’s conception of his
dignity and to the essential features
of his systems of conduct and social
organisation. Accordingly, they cling
to the belief that living matter and
Man have not proceeded from an
orderly evolution of Nature, but are
“ super ’’-natural. It is found, on the
other hand, by many who have con
sidered these speculations, and hold no
less explicitly than do the super
naturalists ” that life is a momentou s
and peculiar feature of our earth s
surface, and Man the isolated and
unparalleled piece of work,
the
beauty of the world,” “the paragon
of animals”—it is found by many
such, I say, that nothing is gained in
regard to our conception of Man’s
1 See, however, the letter from the Times,
nobility and significance by supposing
reprinted on p. 34.
�NATUBE’S INSUBGENT SON
fchat he and the living matter which
has given rise to him are not the
outcome of that system of orderly
process which we call Nature.
There is one consideration in regard
to this matter which, it seems, is often
overlooked and should be emphasised.
It is sometimes—and perhaps with a
sufficient excuse in a want of acquaint
ance with Nature—held by those who
oppose the conclusion that Man has
been evolved by natural processes that
the products of Nature are arbitrary,
haphazard, and due to chance, and
that Man cannot be conceived of as
originating by chance. This notion of
“ chance ” is a misleading figment
inherited by the modern world from
days of blank ignorance. The “ Nature
searchers” of to-day admit no such
possibility as “ chance.” It will be in
the recollection of many of my readers
that a leading writer and investigator
of the Victorian Era—the physicist
John Tyndall—pointed out in a cele
brated address delivered at Belfast
that, according to the conceptions of
the mechanism of Nature arrived at
by modern science, • the structure of
that mechanism is such that it would
have been possible for a being of
adequate intelligence inspecting the
gaseous nebula from which our plane
tary system has evolved to have fore
seen in that luminous vapour the
Belfast audience and the professor
addressing it I
The fallacy that in given but un
known circumstances anything what
ever may occur in spite of the fact
that some one thing has been irrevo
cably arranged to occur is a common
one.1 It is correct to assume in the
5
absence of any pertinent knowledge
(if we are compelled to estimate the
probabilities) that one event is as
likely as another to occur; but never
theless there is no “ chance ” in the
matter since the event has been already
determined, and might be predicted by
those possessing the knowledge which
we lack. Thus, then, it appears that
the conclusion that man is a part of
nature is by no means equivalent to
asserting that he has originated by
“ blind chance it is, in fact, a specific
assertion that he is the predestined
outcome of an orderly—and to a large
extent “ perceptible ”—mechanism.2
6.—Nature’s Mode of Producing
Organic Forms.
The general process by which the
Variation, as affording the opportunity for the
operation of Natural Selection, to assume
that the variations presented by organisms
are minute variations in every direction around
a central point. Those observers who have
done useful work in showing the definite and
limited character of organic variations have
very generally assumed that they are opposing
a commonly held opinion that variation is of
this equally distributed character. I cannot
find that Mr. Darwin made any such assump
tion ; and it is certain, and must on reflection
have been recognised by all naturalists, that
the variations by the selection and intensifi
cation of which natural selection has produced
distinct forms or species, and in the course of
time altogether new groups of plants and
animals, are strictly limited to definite lines
rendered possible, and alone possible, by the
constitution of the living matter of the
parental organism. We have no reason to
suppose that the offspring of a beetle could in
the course of any number of generations
present variations on which selection could
operate so as to eventually produce a mam
malian vertebrate; or that, in fact, the
general result of the process of selection of
favourable variations in the past has not been
ab initio limited by the definite and restricted
possibilities characteristic of the living sub
stance of the parental organisms of each
divergent line or branch of the pedigree.
1 There is a tendency among writers on
2 See p. 34,
�6
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
higher and more elaborate forms of
life, and eventually man himself, have
been produced has been shown by
Darwin to depend upon two important
properties of living matter manifested
in connection with the multiplication
of individuals. Living matter has a
special property of adding to its bulk
by taking up the chemical elements
which it requires and building up the
food so taken as additional living
matter. It further has the power of
separating from itself minute particles
or germs which feed and grow inde
pendently, and thus multiply their
kind. It is a fundamental character
of this process of reproduction that
the detached or pullulated germ in
herits or carries with it from its parents
the peculiarities of form and structure
of its parent. This is the property
known as Heredity. It is most essen
tially modified by another property—
namely, that though eventually grow
ing to be closely like the parent, the
germ (especially when it is formed, as
is usual, by the fusion of two germs
from two separate parents) is never
identical in all respects with the parent.
It shows Variation. In virtue of
heredity the new congenital variations
shown by a new generation are trans
mitted to their offspring when in due
time they pullulate or produce germs.
Man has long been aware of this; and,
by selecting variations of beasts, birds,
or plants agreeable or useful to him,
has intensified such variations and
produced animals and plants in many
features very unlike those with which
he started.
It was Darwin’s merit to show that
a process of selection which he called
“ Natural Selection ” must take place
in the free untouched conditions under
which animals and plants exist, and
have existed for ages, on this globe.
Both animals and plants produce
germs, or young, in excess—usually in
vast excess. The world, the earth’s
surface, is practically full—that is to
say, fully occupied. Only one pair of
young can grow up to take the place
of the pair—male and female—which
have launched a dozen, or it may be
as many as a hundred thousand, young
individuals on the world.1 The pro
perty of variation ensures that amongst
this excess of young there are many
differences. Eventually those survive
which are most fitted to the special
conditions under which this particular
organism has to live. The conditions
may, and indeed in long lapses of time
must, change, and thus some variation
not previously favoured will gain the
day and survive. The “ struggle for
existence ” of Darwin is the struggle
amongst all the superabundant young
of a given species, in a given area, to
gain the necessary food, to escape
voracious enemies, and gain protection
from excesses of* heat, cold, moisture,
and dryness. One pair in the new
generation—only one pair—survive for
every parental pair. Animal popula
tion does not increase. “ Increase and
multiply ” has never been said by
Nature to her lower creatures. Locally,
and from time to time, owing to excep
tional changes, a species may multiply
here and decrease there; but it is im
portant to realise that the “ struggle
for existence ” in Nature—that is to
say, among the animals and plants of
this earth untouched by man—is a
1 A single pair of American oysters produce
on an average .twenty million fertilised eggs I
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
desperate OB©, however tranquil and
peaceful the battlefield may appear to
us. The struggle for existence takes
jjace, not as a clever French writer1
1 M, Paul Bourget, of the Academic Franeaise, is not only a charming writer of modern
“novels,” but claims to be a “psychologist,”
a title which perhaps may be conceded to
every author who writes of human character.
His works are so deservedly esteemed, and his
erudition is as a rule so unassailable, that in
selecting him as an example of the frequent
aaisrepresentation among literary men of
Darwin’s doctrine, I trust that my choice
may be regarded as a testimony of my admira
tion for his art. In his novel Un Divorce,
published in 1904, M. Bourget says: “La
lutte entre les especos, cette inflexible loi de
1’univers animal, a sa correspondence exacte
dans le monde des idees. Certaines men
tality constituent de vdritables especes* intellectuelles qui ne peuvent pas durer d cotd les
unes des autres” (Edition Pion, p. 317). This
inflexible law of the animal universe, the
Struggle between species, is one which is quite
unknown to zoologists. The “ struggle for
existence,” to which Darwin assigned im
portance, is not a struggle between different
species, but one between closely similar
members of the same species. The struggle
between species is by no means universal, but
in fact very rare. The preying of one species
on another is a moderated affair of balance
and adjustment which may be described rather
as an accommodation than as a struggle.
A more objectionable misinterpretation of
the naturalists’ doctrine of the survival of the
fittest in the struggle for existence is that
made by journalists and literary politicians,
who declare, according to their political bias,
either that science rightly teaches that the
gross quality measured by wealth and strength
alone can survive, and should therefore alone
be cultivated, or that science (and especially
Darwinism) has done serious injury to the
progress of mankind by authorising this
teaching. Both are wrong, and owe their
error to self-satisfied flippancy and traditional
ignorance in regard to Nature-knowledge and
the teaching of Darwin. The “ fittest ” does
not mean the “strongest.” The causes of
survival under Natural Selection are very far
indeed from being rightly described as mere
strength, nor are they baldly similar to the
power of accumulating wealth. Frequently
in Nature the more obscure and feeble survive
in the struggle because of their modesty and
L suitability to given conditions, whilst the rich
K are sent empty away and the mighty perish
by hunger.
1
glibly informs his readers, between
different species, but between indi
viduals of the same species, brothers
and sisters and cousins. The struggle
between a beast of prey which seeks
to nourish itself and the buffalo which
defends its life with its horns is not
“ the struggle for existence ” so named
by Darwin. Moreover, the struggle
among the members of a species in
natural conditions differs totally from
the mere struggle for advancement or
wealth with which uneducated writers
so frequently compare it. It differs
essentially in this—that in Nature s
struggle for existence, death, immediate
obliteration, is the fate of the van
quished, whilst the only reward to the
victors—few, very few, but rare and
beautiful in the fitness which has
carried them to victory—is the per
mission to reproduce their kind—to
carry on by heredity to another genera
tion the specific qualities by which
they triumphed.
It is not generally realised how
severe is the pressure and competition
in Nature, not between different species,
but between the immature members of
the population of one and the same
species, precisely because they are of
the same species and have exactly the
same needs. From a human point of
view, the pressure under which many
wild things live is awful in its severity
and relentless tenacity. Not only are
new forms established by natural
selection, but the old forms, when
they exactly fit the mould presented,
as it were, for competitive filling, are
maintained by the same unremitting
process. A distinctive quality in the
beauty of natural productions (in which
man delights) is due to the unobtrusive
�8
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
yet tremendous slaughter of the unfit
8.—The Emergence of Man.
which is incessantly going on and the
absolute restriction of the privilege of
As to how and when Man emerged
parentage to the happy few who attain from the terrestrial animal population
to the standard described as "the so strictly controlled and moulded by
fittest.”
natural selection is a matter upon
which we gain further information
7-. The Limited Variety of Nature’s year by year. There must be many
Products.
readers who remember, as I do, the
The process of development of an astounding and almost sudden dis
immense variety of animal and vege covery some forty-five years ago of
table forms has proceeded in this way abundant and overwhelming evidence
through countless ages of geologic that man had existed in Western
time, but it must not be supposed Europe as a contemporary of the
that any and every conceivable form mammoth and rhinoceros, the hyaena
and variety has been produced. There and the lion, which also existed there.
are only two great diverging lines of The dispute over the facts submitted
descent from original living matter- to the scientific world by Boucher de
only the animals and the plants. And Perthes was violent and of short
in each of these there are and have duration. The immense antiquity of
been only a limited number of branches Man was established and accepted on
to the pedigree, some coming off at a all sides just before Mr. Darwin pub
lower level, others at higher points lished his book on The Origin of Species.
when more elaborate structure has The palaeolithic implements of the river
been attained. It is easy to imagine gravels, though probably made much
groups of both plants and animals more than 150,000 years ago, do not,
with characters and structures which any more than do the imperfect skulls
have never existed and never will exist. occasionally found in association with
The limitation of the whole process, in them, indicate a condition of the
spite of its enormous duration in time, human race greatly more monkey-like
its gigantic output and variety, is a than is presented by existing savage
striking and important fact. Linnaeus races (see Pigs. 1 and 2 and Frontis
said : There are just as many species piece, and their explanations). The
as in the beginning the Infinite Being implements themselves are manufac
created”; and the modern naturalist tured with great skill and artistic
can go no further than the paraphrase feeling. Within the last ten years
of this, and must say : “ There are and much rougher flint implements, of
have been just so many and just so few peculiar types, have been discovered
varieties of animal and vegetable struc in gravels which are 500 feet above
ture on this earth as it was possible for the level of the existing rivers (see
the physical and chemical contents of Figs. 3 and 4).1 These Eoliths of the
the still molten globe to form up to the
1 [In 1909 large, skilfully worked flint
hour now reached.”
implements called “ rostro - carinate,” or
“eagles’ beaks,” were discovered in the bone-
�\T A'TTTT^Ti1’Si
T NTSi TTP. ft 7<! NT SION
9
�10
NATURE'S INSURGENT SON
Fig. 3.
Photographs of eight Eoliths of one and the same shape, namely, with a chipped or worked tooth
like prominence, rendering the flint fit for use as a "borer”—photographed half the actual size
(linear measurement) from specimens found near Ightham, Kent, in the high-level gravel—which
form part of the Prestwieh collection in the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London. Many
others of the same shape have been found in the same locality. These and the trinacrial implements
photographed in Fig. 4 are far older than the oval and leaf-shaped Palaeoliths of the low-lying gravels
oi the valleys of the Thames, Somme, and other rivers. (Original.)
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
1]
Fig. 4.
Photographs of six Eoliths of the “shoulder of mutton” or "trinacrial” type—from the same locality
and collection as those shown in Fig. 3. The photographs are of half the length of the actual specimens.
A considerable number of worked flints of this peculiar shape have been found in the same locality.
Possibly their shape enabled the primitive men who “ chipped ” and used them to attach them by thongs
to a stick or club. The descriptive term “ trinacrial” is suggested by me for these flints in allusion to
the form of the island of Sicily, which they resemble. (Original.) [An important fact tending to prove
the human authorship of these “ trinacrial implements ” is the discovery by Dr. Blackmore of one in a
gravel near Salisbury, together with a large Quantity of hollow-faced “ scrapers.” The specimen is in
the Jfetural History Museum, Cromwell Road.]
�12
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
South of England indicate a race of
men of less developed skill than the
makers of the Palaaoliths, and carry
the antiquity of man at least as far
back beyond the Palaeoliths as these
are from the present day. We have
as yet found no remains giving the
direct basis for conclusions on the sub
ject ; but, judging by the analogy (not
by any means a conclusive method)
furnished by the history of other large
animals now living alongside of man—
such as the horse, the rhinoceros, the
tapir, the wolf, the hyaena, and the
bear—it is not improbable that it was
in the remote period known as the
lower Miocene—remote even as com
pared with the gravels in which
Eoliths occur—that Natural Selection
began to favour that increase in the
size of the brain of a large and not
very powerful semi-erect ape which
eventuated, after some hundreds of
thousands of years, in the breeding
out of a being with a relatively
enormous brain-case, a skilful hand,
and an inveterate tendency to throw
stones, flourish sticks, protect himself
in caves, and in general to defeat
aggression and satisfy his natural
appetites by the use of his wits rather
than by strength alone, in which, how
ever, he was not deficient. Probably
this creature had nearly the full size
of brain and every other physical
character of modern man, although
he had not as yet stumbled upon the
art of making fire by friction, nor
converted his conventional grunts and
groans, his screams, laughter, and
bed at the base of the Red Crag of Suffolk
by Mr. Reid Moir, of Ipswich, and establish
the existence of man in the Pliocene period.
See Lankester, Proc. Royal Society, Novem
ber, 1911.]
interjections, into a language corre
sponding to (and thenceforth develop
ing) his power of thought.
9.—The Enlarged Brain.
The leading feature in the develop
ment and separation of Man from
amongst other animals is undoubtedly
the relatively enormous size of the
brain in man, and the corresponding
increase in its activities and capacity.
It is a very striking fact that it was
not in the ancestors of man alone that
this increase in the size of the brain
took place at this same period—viz.,
the Miocene. The great mammals such
as the titanotherium, which represented
the rhinoceros in early Tertiary times,
had a brain which was, in proportion to
the bulk of the body, not more than oneeighth the volume of the brain of the
modern rhinoceros (see Fig. 5). Other
great mammals of the earlier Tertiary
period were in the same case; and the
ancestors of the horse, which are better
known than those of any other modern
animal, certainly had very much smaller
brains, in proportion to the size of their
bodies, than has their descendant.
We may well ask to what this
sudden and marked increase in the size
of the brain in several lines of the
animal pedigree is due. It seems that
the inborn hereditary nervous mechan
ism by which many simple and neces
sary movements of the body are con
trolled and brought into relation with
the outer world, acting upon the sense
organs, can be carried in a relatively
small bulk of brain-substance. Fish,
lizards, and crocodiles, with their small
brains, carry on a complex and effec
tive life of relation with their sur
roundings.
It appears that the
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
increased bulk of cerebral substance
rnp.g.ns increased educability
an
increased power of storing up individual experience—which tends to take
the place of the inherited mechanism,
with which it is often in antagonism.
The power of profiting by individual
experience—in fact, educability must,
in conditions of close competition, be,
When other conditions are equal, an
immense advantage to its possessor.
It seems that we have to imagine that
the adaptation of mammalian form to
the various conditions of life had, in
Miocene times, reached a point when
13
reward, the triumph, the survival,
would fall to those who possessed most
skill in the use of the instrument.
And in successive generations the bigger
and more educable brains would sur
vive and mate, and thus bigger and
bigger brains be produced.
It would not be difficult (though
not, perhaps, profitable) to imagine
the conditions which have favoured
the continuation of this process to a
far greater length in the Simian line
of the pedigree than in other mam
malian groups. The result is that the
creature called Man emerged with an
Fig. 5.
Four casts of the cavity of the skull lodging the brain of a series of large Ungulate Mammals in order to
show the relatively small size of the cerebral hemispheres of the extinct creature>fromi whichi A is taken.
A is that of Dinoceras, a huge extinct Eocene mammal which was as large as a Rhmoceios , B is that
of Hippopotamus? C of Horse ; and D of Rhinoceros. In each figure O points to the olfactory lobes of
the brain, C to the cerebrum, CL to the cerebellum, and M to the medulla oblongata.
further alteration and elaboration of
the various types which we know then
existed could lead to no advantage.
The variations presented for selection
in the struggle for existence presented
no advantage—the “ fittest” had prac
tically been reached, and was destined
to survive with little change. Assum
ing such a relative lull in the develop
ment of mere mechanical form, it is
obvious that the opportunity for those
individuals with the most “ educable ”
brains to defeat their competitors
Would arise. No marked improvement
in the instrument being possible, the
educable brain of some five or six times
the bulk (in proportion to his size and
weight) of that of any other surviving
Simian. Great as is this difference, it
is one of the most curious facts in the
history of man’s development that the
bulk of his brain does not appear to
have continued to increase in any very
marked degree since early Palaeolithic
times. The cranial capacity of many
savage races and of some of the
most ancient human skulls is not
less than that of the average man of
highly-civilised race. The value of
the mental activities in which primitive
�14
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
man differs from the highest apes
may be measured in some degree by
the difference in the size of the man’s
and the ape’s brain ; but the difference
in the size of the brain of Isaac Newton
and an Australian black-fellow is not
in the remotest degree proportionate
to the difference in their mental quali
ties. Man, it would seem, at a very
remote period, attained the extra
ordinary development of brain which
marked him off from the rest of the
animal world, but has ever since been
developing the powers and qualities of
this organ without increasing its size,
or materially altering in other bodily
features.1
10.—The Progress of Man.
The origin of Man by the process
of Natural Selection is one chapter
in Man’s history; another one begins
with the consideration of his further
development and his diffusion over the
surface of the globe.
The mental qualities which have
developed in Man, though traceable in
a vague and rudimentary condition in
some of his animal associates, are of
such an unprecedented power, and so
far dominate everything else in his
activities as a living organism, that
they have to a very large extent, if not
1 A short discussion of this subject and the
introduction of the term “educability” was
published in a paper by me, entitled “The
Significance of the Increased Size of the
Cerebrum in Recent as Compared with Extinct
Mammalia,” Cinquantenaire de la Societi de
Biologie, Paris, 1899, pp. 48-51.
It has been pointed out to me by my friend
Dr. Andrews, of the Geological Department
of the British Museum, that the brain cavity
of the elephants was already of relatively
large size in the Eocene members of that
group, which may be connected with the per
sistence of these animals through subsequent
geological periods.
entirely, cut him off from the general
operation of that process of Natural
Selection and survival of the fittest
which, up to their appearance, had
been the law of the living world. They
justify the view that Man forms a new
departure in the gradual unfolding of
Nature’s predestined scheme. Know
ledge, reason, self-consciousness, will,
are the attributes of Man. It is not
my purpose to attempt to trace their
development from lower phases of
mental activity in Man’s animal ances
tors, nor even to suggest the steps by
which that development has proceeded.
What we call the will or volition of
Man—a discussion of the nature and
limitation of which would be impos
sible in these pages, and is happily
not necessary for my present purpose
—has become a power in Nature, an
imperium in imperio, which has pro
foundly modified not only Man’s own
history, but that of the whole living
world and the face of the planet on
which he exists. Nature’s inexorable
discipline of death to those who do
not rise to her standard—survival and
parentage for those alone who do—has
been from the earliest times more and
more definitely resisted by the will of
Man. If we may, for the purpose of
analysis, as it were, extract Man from
the rest of Nature, of which he is truly
a product and part, then we may say
that Man is Nature’s rebel. Where
Nature says “Die!” Man says “I
will live.” According to the law pre
viously in universal operation, Man
should have been limited in geo
graphical area, killed by extremes of
cold or of heat, subject to starvation if
one kind of diet were unobtainable,
and should have been unable to
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
15
increase and multiply, just as are his on failure. The stronger, the more
animal relatives, without losing his cunning, the better armed, the more
specific structure and acquiring new courageous tribe or family group, ex
physical characters according to the terminated by actual slaughter or
requirements of the new conditions starvation the neighbouring tribes less
into which he strayed—should have gifted in one or all of these qualities.
perished except on the condition of be But from what we know of the history
coming a new morphological species.” of warlike exterminating savage tribes
ButMan’swits and his will have enabled at the present day—as, for instance,
him to cross rivers and oceans by rafts the Masai of East Africa—it seems
and boats, to clothe himself against unlikely that the method of exter
cold, to shelter himself from heat and mination—that is, of true natural
rain, to prepare an endless variety of selection—had much effect in man s
food by fire, and to “ increase and development after the very earliest
multiply ” as no other animal, without period. Union and absorption were
change of form, without submitting to more usual results of the contact of
the terrible axe of selection wielded by primitive tribes than struggles to the
ruthless Nature over all other living death. The expulsion of one group
things on this globe. And as he has by another from a desired territory
more and more obtained this control was more usual than the destruction
over his surroundings, he has expanded of the conquered. In spite of the
that unconscious protective attitude frequent assertions to the contrary, it
towards his immature offspring which seems that neither the more ancient
N atural Selection had already favoured wars of mankind for conquest and
and established in the animal race migration, nor the present and future
into a conscious and larger love for wars for commercial privilege, have
his tribe, his race, his nationality, and any real equivalence to the simple
his kind. He has developed speech, removal by death of the unfit and the
the power of communicating, and, survival and reproduction of the fit,
above all, of recording and handing which we know as Natural Selection.
on from generation to generation his
1 It would be an error to maintain that the
thought and knowledge.
He has process of Natural Selection is entirely in
regard Man. In
formed communities, built cities, and abeyance in PresenttoEvolution an interesting
book, The
of Man, Dr.
set up empires. At every step of his Archdall Reid has shown that in regard to
progress Man has receded further and zymotic diseases, and also in regard to the
use of dangerous drugs such as alcohol and
further from the ancient rule exercised opium, there is first of all the acquirement of
by Nature. He has advanced so far, immunity by powerful races of men through
among them of those strains
and become so unfitted to the earlier the survivalthe disease or of the drug, and,
tolerant of
rule, that to suppose that Man can secondly, the introduction of those diseases
drugs by
powerful immune race, in
“return to Nature” is as unreason andmigrations, theraces not previously exposed
its
to
able as to suppose that an adult animal either to the diseases or the drugs, and a con
sequent destruction of the invaded race. The
can return to its mother’s womb.
survival of the fittest is, in these cases, a
In early tribal times Natural Selec survival of the tolerant, and eventually of the
tion still imposed the death penalty immune.
�16
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
The standard raised by the rebel
man is not that of “ fitness ” to the
conditions proffered by extra-human
nature, but is one of an ideal comfort,
prosperity, and conscious joy in life—
imposed by the will of man, and in
volving a control, and in important
respects a subversion, of what were
Nature’s methods of dealing with life
before she had produced her insurgent
son. The progress of man in the
acquirement of this control of Nature
has been one of enormous rapidity
within the historical period, and within
the last two centuries has led, on the
one hand, to immensely increased
facilities in the application of mechan
ical power, in locomotion, in agricul
ture, and in endless arts and indus
tries ; and, on the other hand, to the
mitigation of disease and pain. The
men whom we may designate as “ the
Nature- searchers ”—those who founded
the New Philosophy of the so-called
“ Invisible College ” at Oxford and the
Royal Society in London—have placed
boundless power in the hands of man
kind.
11.—-The Attainment by Man of the
Knowledge of his Relations to Nature.
But to many the greatest result
achieved by the progress of Natural
Knowledge seems not to have been so
much in its practical applications and
its material gifts to humanity as in
the fact that Man has arrived through
it at spiritual emancipation and free
dom of thought.
In the latter part of the last century
Man’s place in Nature became clearly
marked out by the accumulation of
definite evidence. The significance
and the immeasurable importance of
the knowledge of Nature to philosophy
and the highest regions of speculative
thought are expressed in the lines of
one who most truly and with keenest
insight embodied in his imperishable
verse the wisdom and the aspirations
of the Victorian age:—
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies ;
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower ; but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
To many the nearer approach to
that “ understanding ” has seemed the
greatest and a sufficient result of
scientific researches. The recognition
that such an understanding leads to
such vast knowledge would seem to
ensure further and combined effort to
bring it nearer and nearer to the
complete form, even if the perfect
understanding of the “ all in all ” be
for ever unattainable. Nevertheless,
the clearer apprehension, so recently
attained, of Man’s origin and destiny,
and of the enormous powers of which
he has actually the control, has not
led to any very obvious change in the
attitude of responsible leaders of human
activity in the great civilised communi
ties of the world. They still attach
little or no importance to the acquire
ment of a knowledge of Nature; they
remain fixed in the old ruts of tradi
tional ignorance, and obstinately turn
their faces towards the past, still
believing that the teachings and say
ings of antiquity and the contempla
tion—not to say the detailed enumera
tion—of the blunders and crimes of its
ancestors can furnish mankind with
the knowledge necessary for its future
progress. The comparative failure of
what may be called the speculative
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
triumph of the New Philosophy to
produce immediate practical conse
quences has even led some among
those prejudiced by custom and educa
tion in favour of the exclusive employ
ment of man’s thought and ingenuity
in the delineation and imaginative
resurrection of the youthful follies and
excesses of his race, to declare that
the knowledge of Nature is a failure,
the New Philosophy of the Nature
searchers a fraud. Thus the wellknown French publicist M. Brunetidre
has taken upon himself to declare what
he calls the Bankruptcy of Science.
37
13.—Man's Destiny.
Within the last few years an attempt
to spur the will of Englishmen in this
direction has been made by some who
have represented that this way lie
great fortunes, national ascendancy,
imperial domination. The effort has
not met with much success. On the
other hand, I speak for those who
would urge the conscious and deli
berate assumption of his kingdom by
Man, not as a matter of markets and
of increased opportunity for the cos
mopolitan dealers in finance, but as
an absolute duty, the fulfilment of
Man’s destiny,1 a necessity the inci
dence of which can only be deferred
and not avoided.
This is, indeed, the definite purpose
of my discourse: to point out that
civilised man has proceeded so far in
his interference with extra-human
Nature, has produced for himself and
the living organisms associated with
bim such a special state of things by
his rebellion against Natural Selection
and his defiance of Nature’s pre-human
dispositions, that he must either go on
and acquire firmer control of the con
ditions or perish miserably by the
vengeance certain to fall on the half
hearted meddler in great affairs. We
may, indeed, compare civilised man to
a successful rebel against Nature, who
by every step forward renders himself
liable to greater and greater penalties,
and so cannot afford to pause or fail
in one single step. Or, again, we may
think of him as the heir to a vast and
12.—The Regnum Hominis.
As a matter of fact, the new know
ledge of Nature—the newly-ascertained
capacity of Man for a control of Nature
so thorough as to be almost unlimited
—has not as yet had an opportunity
for showing what it can do. A lull
after victory, a lethargic contentment,
has to some extent followed on the
crowning triumphs of the great
Nature-searchers whose days were
numbered with the closing years of
that nineteenth century which through
them marks an epoch. No power
has called on Man to arise and enter
upon the possession of his kingdom—
the Regnum Hominis foreseen by
Francis Bacon and pictured by him
to an admiring but incredulous age
with all the fervour and picturesque
detail of which he was capable. And
yet at this moment the mechanical
difficulties, the want of assurance and
of exact knowledge, which necessarily
prevented Bacon’s schemes from taking
1 “ Religion means the knowledge of our
practical shape, have been removed.
destiny and of the means of fulfilling it.” The will to possess and administer Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, some
time Bishop of London, Vol. II., p. 195.
this vast territory alone is wanting.
�18
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
magnificent kingdom who has been
finally educated so as to fit him to
take possession of his property, and is
at length left alone to do his best; he
has wilfully abrogated in many impor
tant respects the laws of his mother
Nature, by which the kingdom was
hitherto governed; be has gained some
power and advantage by so doing, but
is threatened on every hand by dangers
and disasters hitherto restrained. No
retreat is possible; his only hope is to
control, as he knows that he can, the
sources of these dangers and disasters.
They already make him wince. How
long-will he sit listening to the fairy
tales of his boyhood and shrink from
manhood’s task ?
A brief consideration of well-ascer
tained facts is sufficient to show that
Man, whilst emancipating himself from
the destructive methods of Natural
Selection, has accumulated a new
series of dangers and difficulties with
which he must incessantly contend.
14.—Man and Disease.
In the extra-human system of
Nature there is no disease and there
is no conjunction of incompatible
forms of life, such as Man has brought
about on the surface of the globe. In
extra-human Nature the selection of
the fittest necessarily eliminates those
diseased or liable to disease. Disease
both of parasitic and congenital origin
occurs as a minor phenomenon. The
congenitally diseased are destroyed
before they can reproduce; the attacks
of parasites great and small either
serve only to carry off the congenitally
weak, and thus strengthen the race, or
become harmless by the survival of
those individuals which, owing to
peculiar qualities in their tissues, can
tolerate such attacks without injury,
resulting in the establishment of
immune races. It is a remarkable
thing—which possibly may be less
generally true than our present know
ledge seems to suggest—that the
adjustment of organisms to their
surroundings is so severely complete
in Nature apart from Man that dis
eases are unknown as constant and
normal phenomena under those condi
tions. It is no doubt difficult to
investigate this matter, since the
presence of Man as an observer itself
implies human intervention. But it
seems to be a legitimate view that
every disease to which animals (and
probably plants also) are liable,
excepting as a transient and very
exceptional occurrence, is due to
Man’s interference. The diseases of
cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses are not
known except in domesticated herds
and those wild creatures to which
Man’s domesticated productions have
communicated them. The trypano
some lives in the blood of wild game
and of rats without producing mis
chief. The hosts have become tolerant
of the parasite. It is only when Man
brings his unselected, humanly nur
tured races of cattle and horses into
contact with the parasite that it is
found to have deadly properties.1 The
1 This has been established in the case of
the Trypanosoma Brucei, a minute parasite
living in the blood of big game in South-East
Africa, amongst which it is disseminated by
a bloodsucking fly, the Glossina morsitans
or Tsetze fly. The parasite appears to do
little or no harm to the native big game, but
causes a deadly disease both in tbe horses and
cattle introduced by Europeans and in the
more anciently introduced native cattle (of
Indian origin). Similar cases are found where
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
19
various cattle-diseases which in Africa
have done so much harm to native
cattle, and have in some regions
exterminated big game, have per contra
been introduced by Man through his
importation of diseased animals of his
own breeding from Europe. Most, if
not all, animals in extra-human condi
tions, including the minuter things such
as insects, shell-fish, and invisible
aquatic organisms, have been brought
into a condition of “ adjustment ” to
their parasites as well as to the other
conditions in which they live; it is
this most delicate and efficient balance
of Nature which Man everywhere
upsets. A solitary case of a ravaging
epidemic constantly recurring amongst
animals living in extra-human condi
tions, one of a strangely interesting
character,is the phosphorescent disease
of the sand-shrimps or sand-hoppers.
This is due to a microscopic parasite, a
bacterium, which infests the blood, and
is phosphorescent, so that the infected
sand-hopper has at night the br'Uiancy
of a glow-worm. The disease is deadly,
and is common among the sand-hoppers
dwelling in the sandy flats of the north
coast of France, where it may readily
be studied.1 It has not been recorded
as occurring in this country. It is not
at all improbable that this disease is
also in truth one which only occurs in
the trail of Man. It is quite likely
that the artificial conditions of sewage
and garbage set up by man on the sea
coast are responsible for the prevalence
of this parasite and the weakly recep
tivity of the too numerous sand
hoppers.
It is probable enough that, from
time to time, under the influence of
certain changes of climate and asso
ciated fauna and flora—due to meteoric
or geologic movements — parasitic
a disease germ (such as that of measles) pro
duces but a small degree of sickness and
mortality in a pppulation long associated with
it, but is deadly to a human community to
which it is a new-comer. Thus, Europeans
have introduced measles with deadly results
in the South Sea Islands. A similar kind of
difficulty, of whioh many might be cited, is
brought about by Man’s importations and
exportations of useful plants. He thus
brought the Phylloxera to Europe, not
realising beforehand that this little parasitic
bug, though harmless to the American vine,
which puts out new shoots on its roots when
the insect injures the old ones, is absolutely
deadly to the European vine, which has not
acquired the simple but all-important mode
of growth by which the American vine is
rendered safe. Thus, too, he took the cofieeplant to Ceylon, and found his plantations
suddenly devastated by a minute mould, the
Hemileia vastatrix, which had lived very
innocently before that in the Cingalese
forests, but was ready to burst into rapacious
and destructive activity when the new un
adjusted coflee-trees were imported by man
tod presented in carefully crowded planta
tions to its unrestrained infeotion.
1 The phosphorescent disease of the sand
hopper (Talitrus) is described by Giard and
Billet in a paper entitled “ Observations sur la
maladie phosphorescente des Talitres et autres
Crustaces,” in the Memoirs of the Society de
Biologie, Oct. 19, 1889. Billet subsequently
gave a further account of this organism, and
named it Bacillus Qiardi—after Professor
Giard of Paris. (Bulletins sdentifiques de la
France et de la Belgique, xxi, 1898, p. 144.)
It appears that the parasite is transmitted
from one individual to another in coition.
The specimens studied by Giard and Billet
were obtained at Wimereux, near Boulogne.
I found the disease very abundant at Ouistreham, near Caen, in the summer of 1900. I
have not observed it nor heard of its occur
rence on the English coast. Sea-water nommonly contains a free-living phosphorescent
bacterium which can be cultivated in flasks
of liquid food, and gives rich growths
which glow like a lamp when the flask is
agitated so as to expose the contents to
oxidation. This bacterium is not, however,
the cause of the “ phosphorescence ” of the
sea often seen on our coasts. That is due, in
most cases, to a much larger organism, as big
as a small pin’s head, and known as Noctiluca
miliaris,
�20
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
disease has for a time ravaged this or
that species newly exposed to it; but
the final result is one of the alterna
tives, extinction or adjustment, death
or toleration. The disease does not
establish itself as a scourge against
which the diseased organism inces
santly contends. It either obliterates
its victim or settles down with it into
relations of reciprocal toleration.
Man does not admit this alternative
either for himself or for the domesti
cated and cultivated organisms which
he protects. He “ treats ” disease, he
staves off “ the adjustment by death,”
and thus accumulates vast populations
of unadjusted human beings, animals,
and plants, which from time to time
are ravaged by disease—producing
uncertainty and dismay in human
society. Within the past few years
the knowledge of the causes of disease
has become so far advanced that it is
a matter of practical certainty that, by
the unstinted application of known
methods of investigation and conse
quent controlling action, all epidemic
disease could be abolished within a
period so short as fifty years. It is
merely a question of the employment
of the means at our command. Where
there is one man of first-rate intelli
gence employed in detecting the disease
producing parasites, their special con
ditions of life and the way to bring
them to an end, there should be a
thousand. It should be as much the
purpose of civilised governments to
protect their citizens in this respect
as it is to provide defence against
human aggression. Yet it is the fact
that this immensely important control
of a great and constant danger and
injury to mankind is left to the unor
ganised inquiries of a few enthusiasts.
So little is this matter understood or
appreciated that those who are respon
sible for the welfare of States, with
the rarest exceptions, do not even
know that such protection is possible,
and others again are so far from an
intelligent view as to its importance
that they actually entertain the opinion
that it would be a good thing were
there more disease in order to get rid
of the weakly surplus population I
In the spring of 1905 I was enabled
to examine in the Pasteur Institute in
Paris the minute spiral thread (see
Fig. 6) which had just been discovered
and shown to be the cause of the
most terrible and widely spread of
human diseases, destroying the health
and strength of those whom it does
not kill and damaging the lives of their
children, so that it has been justly
said that this malady and the use of
alcohol as a beverage are together
responsible for more than half the
disease and early death of the mature
population of Europe. For more than
thirty years a few workers here and
there have been searching for this
parasite, and the means of suppressing
the awful curse of which it is the
instrument. It would have been dis
covered many years ago had greater
value been set on the inquiries which
lead to such discoveries by those who
direct the public expenditure of civilised
States. And now the complete sup
pression of this dire enemy of humanity
is as plain and certain a piece of work
to be at once accomplished as is the
building of an ironclad. But it will
not be done for many years because of
the ignorance and unbelief of those
who alone can act for the community
�NATURE'S INSURGENT SON
in such matters. The discovery—the
presentation to the eye and to explor
ing manipulation—of that well-nigh
ultra-microscopic germ of death seemed
to me, as I gazed at its delicate shape,
a thing of greater significance to man
kind than the emendation of a Greek
text or the determination of the exact
degree of turpitude of a statesman of
a bygone age.
The knowledge of the causation of
disease by bacterial and protozoic
21
obtained has led to a control of the
attack or of the poisonous action of
the parasite. Antiseptic surgery, by
defeating the poisonous parasite, has
saved not only thousands upon thou
sands of lives, but has removed an
incalculable amount of pain. Control
is slowly being obtained in regard to
several others among these deadly
microbes in various ways, most wonder
ful of which is the development, under
Man’s control, of serums containing
Fig. 6.
The minute vibratile organism discovered by Fritz Schaudinn in 1905 in the eruptive formations and
other diseased growths of syphilis—and called by him Spirochaeta pallida (since altered to Spironema
pallidum): a common phase; b shortened and thickened form leading on to e the Trypanosoma-like
form; c, d stages of division by fission; / elongated multi-nuclear form;
segments into which it
breaks up ; h supposed conjugation of male and female units (after Krystallovitch and Siedlevski).
This organism, though resembling the spirillar forms of bacteria, is probably not one of that group
of vegetable parasites, but allied to the minute animal parasites known as Trypanosomes (see pp. 87
and 10S and figures). It is regarded as the “germ” or active cause of the terrible disease known as
syphilis.
parasites is a thing which has come
into existence, under our very eyes
and hands, within the last fifty years.
The parasite, and much of its nature
and history, has been discovered in the
case of splenic fever, leprosy, phthisis,
diphtheria, typhoid fever, glanders,
cholera, plague, lockjaw, gangrene,
septic poisoning (of wounds), puerperal
fever, malaria, sleeping sickness, and
some other diseases which are fatal to
man. In some cases the knowledge
anti-toxins appropriate to each disease,
which have to be injected into the
blood as the means of either cure or
protection. But why should we be
content to wait long years, even
centuries, for this control, when we
can have it in a few years ? If more
men and abler men were employed to
study and experiment on this matter,
we should soon make an end of all
infectious disease. Is there anyone,
man or woman, who would not wish
�22
HATUBE’S INSUBEENT SON_________________ .
to contribute to the removal from
human life of the suffering and un
certainty due to disease, the anguish
and misery caused by premature
death ? Yet nothing is done by those
who determine the expenditure of the
revenues of great States towards deal
ing adequately with this matter.
1 As little is the question of the use and
abuse of food and drink dealt with, as yet, by
civilised Man. As in many other matters
Man has carried into his later crowded,
artificial, Nature-controlling life habits and
tendencies derived from savage prehistoric
days, so has he perpetuated ways of feeding
which are mere traditions from his early
“ animal ” days, and have never been seriously
called in question and put to proof, The
persistence under new conditions of either
habit or structure which belonged to old con
ditions may be attended with great danger
and difficulty to an organism which changes,
as Man does, with great rapidity important
features in its general surroundings and mode
of life. This is in efiect MetschnikoS’s doc
trine of “ disharmonies.” It is probable that
in very early days, when a tribe of primitive
men killed a mammoth, they all rushed on
to the dead monster and gorged as much of
its flesh as they could swallow (cooked or
possibly uncooked). They had to take in
enough to last for another week or two—that
is to say, until another large animal should
be trapped and slain. Accordingly he who
could eat most would be strongest and best
able to seize a good share when the next
opportunity arrived, and it naturally became
considered an indication of strength, vigour,
and future prosperity to be capable of gorging
large quantities of food. By means of the
phrases “ enjoying a good appetite,” or a
good trencherman,” or other such approving
terms, civilised society still encourages the
heavy feeder. The poorer classes always con
sider a ravenous appetite to be an indication
of strength and future prosperity in a child.
Most healthy men, and even many women, m
Western Europe attack their food and swallow
it without sufficient mastication, and as
though they did not hope to get another
chance of feeding for a week or two to come.
Medical men have never ventured to inves
tigate seriously whether civilised man is
doing best for his health in behaving like a
• savage about his food. It is their business to
attend to the patient with a disordered diges
tion, but not to experiment upon the amount
of food of various kinds which the modern
man should swallow in order to avoid indiges-
15,—The Increase of Human
Population.
Whilst there is a certainty of Man’s
power to remove all disease from his
life, a difficulty which he has already
created for himself will be thereby in
creased. That difficulty is the increase
of human population beyond the
capacity of the earth’s surface to
provide food and the other necessities
of life. By rebelling against Nature’s
method Man has made himself the
tion and yet supply his alimentary needs.
No individual can possibly pay medical men
to make these observations. It is the business
of the State to do so, because such knowledge
is not only needed by the private citizen, but
is of enormous importance in the manage
ment of armies and navies, in the victualling
of hospitals, asylums, and prisons, lhousands of tons of preserved meat have been
wasted in recent wars because the reckless
and ignorant persons who purchased the pre
served meat to feed soldiers had never taken
the trouble to ascertain whether preserved
meat can be eaten by a body of men as a
regular and chief article of diet. It appears
that certain methods of preserving meat
render it innutritious and impossible as a
It is probable from recent experiment that
we all, except those unfortunate few who do
not get enough, eat about twice as much as
we require, and that the superfluous quantity
swallowed not only is wasted, but is actually
a cause of serious illness and suffering. 1
surely is an urgent matter that these questions
about food should be thoroughly investigated
and settled. In the opinion of the most
eminent physiologist of the United States
(Professor Bowditch), we shall never establish
a rational and healthy mode of feeding our
selves until we give up the barbarous but to
some persons pleasant custom of converting
the meal into a social function ; we are thus
tempted into excess. Only long and„extensive
experiment can provide us with definite an
conclusive information on this matter, whic
is far more important than at firs sg
seems to be. And similarly with rega^d ?2
the admittedly serious question of alcohol
only very extensive and authoritative exper
ment will suffice to show mankind whether 1
is a wise and healthy thing to take it in small
quantities, the exact limits of which must be
stated, or to reject it altogether.
.lUfi-
�NATURE'S INSURGENT SON
only animal which constantly increases
in numbers. Whenever disease is con
trolled his increase will be still more
rapid than at present. At the same
time, no attempt at present has been
made by the more advanced com
munities of civilised men to prevent
the multiplication of the weakly or
of those liable to congenital disease.
Already something like a panic on this
subject has appeared in this country.
Inquiries have been conducted by
public authorities. But the only pos
sible method of dealing with this
matter, and in the first place of
estimating its importance as imme
diate or remote, has not been applied.
Man can only deal with this difficulty,
created by his own departure from
Nature—to wrhich he can never return
—by thoroughly investigating the laws
of breeding and heredity, and pro
ceeding to apply a control to human
multiplication based upon certain and
indisputable knowledge.
It may be a century, or it may be
more than five centuries, before the
matter would, if let alone, force itself
upon a desperate humanity, brutalised
by overcrowding and the struggle for
food. A return to Nature’s terrible
selection of the fittest may, it is con
ceivable, be in this way in store for
us. But it is more probable that
humanity will submit, before that con
dition occurs, to a restriction by the
community in respect of the right to
multiply with as good a grace as it
has given up the right to murder and
to steal. In view of this, Man must,
in entering on his kingdom, at once
proceed to perfect those studies as
to the transmission of qualities by
heredity which have as yet been only
23
roughly carried out by breeders of
animals and horticulturists.
There is absolutely no provision for
this study in any civilised community,
and no conception among the people
or their leaders that it is a matter
which concerns anyone but farmers.1
16.—An Untouched Source of Energy.
The applications of steam and elec
tricity have so far astonished and
gratified the rebel Man that he is
sometimes disposed to conclude that
he has come to the end of his power
of relieving himself from the use of his
own muscles for anything but refined
movements and well-considered health
giving exercises. One of the greatest
of chemical discoverers, M. Berthelot
(who died in 1909), has, however,
recently pressed on our attention the
question of the possibility of tapping
the central heat of the earth, and
making use of it as a perennial source
of energy. Many competent physicists
have expressed the opinion that the
mechanical difficulties of such a boring
as would be necessary are insuperable.
No one, however, would venture to
prophesy, in such a matter as this,
that what is prevented by insuperable
obstacles to-day may not be within
our powers in the course of a few
years.
17 .—Spectilations as to the Martians.
Such audacious control of the re
sources of our planet is suggested as
a possibility, a legitimate hope and
1 [A few private organisations with this
object in view have come into existence
within the last five years, but their resources
are altogether inadequate. Results of value
cannot be obtained without the expenditure
of much money.]
�24
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
aim, by recent observations and specu
lations as to our neighbour, the planet
Mars. I do not venture to express
any opinion as to the interpretation of
the appearances revealed by the tele
scope on the surface of the planet
Mars, and, indeed, would take the
most sceptical attitude until further
information is obtained. But the in
fluence of these statements about Mars
on the imagination and hopes of Man
cally filled with water* which is derived
from the polar snow-caps of the planet
at the season of greatest polar heat.
It is suggested that Mars is inhabited
by an intelligent population, not neces
sarily closely similar to mankind, but,
on the contrary, unlike mankind in
proportion as the conditions of Mars
are unlike those of the Earth, and
that these inhabitants have con
structed, by their own efforts, the
enormous irrigation works
upon which the fertility and
habitability of their planet,
at the present time, depend.
These speculations lead M.
Faguet, of the French Aca
demy, to further reflections.
Not only must the Martians,
who have carried out this
vast manipulation of a
planet, be far in advance
of the inhabitants of the
Earth in intelligence and
mechanical power, as a re
sult of the greater age of
their planet and the longer
continuance there of the
evolution of an intelligent
Fig. 7.
race, but such a vast work
.Drawing of Mars in November with Long. 156° on the meri
dian, showing the “Mare Sirenum” (the shaded sickle-shaped
and its maintenance would
area), connected with a network of “canals” showing “spots”
or oases ” at the intersections of the canals and a system of
seem to imply a complete
spherical triangles as the form of the meshwork.—From
Mars,” by Perceval Lowell.
unanimity among the popu
lation—a world-wide peace
seems to me to possess considerable and common government. Since we
interest. The markings on the surface can imagine such a result of the
of the planet Mars, which have been prolonged play of forces in Mars
interpreted as a system of canals, have similar to those at work in our own
been known and discussed for many Earth, and even obtain some slight
years (see Bigs. 7 and 8). It has confirmation of the supposition, may
recently been observed that these we not indulge in the surmise
canals undergo a recurrent seasonal that some such future is in store
change of appearance consistent with for Man; that he may be able here
the hypothesis that they are periodi after to ' deal with great planetary
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
25
nings and its limitations, than it is
for him to know the minutest details
of the workings of Nature. Just as
much in the one case as in the other,
it is impossible for him to trust to the
imperfect analysis made by ancient
races of men, and the traditions and
fancies handed down in old writings—
produced by generations who had not
18.—The Investigation of the Human arrived at the method of investigation
Mind.
which we now can apply. Experiment
In such a desultory survey
as that on which I have ven
tured of Man’s kingdom and
its dangers, it occurs to me to
mention another area upon
which it seems urgent that the
activities of Nature-searchers
should be immediately turned
with increased power and num
ber. The experimental study
of his body and of that of ani
mals has been carried far, and
with valuable results, by in
quiring Man. But a singu
larly small amount of atten
tion has as yet been given to
the investigation of Man’s
mind as a natural phenome
Fig. 8.
non, and one which can be
Drawing
seen
better understood to the im 325° on the of Mars asby Mr. on November 18,1894 (Long.
meridian)
Perceval Lowell at the Flag
staff Observatory, Arizona, U.S.A., showing ‘ twin” or
mense advantage of the race.
“ double ” canals, connected northwards with the “ Mare
The mind of Man—it mat Icarium.” The two figures here reproduced give only a
small portion of the system of canals, oases, and seas of
ters not, for my immediate the planet Mars mapped by Mr. Lowell.
argument, whether it be re
garded as having arisen normally or upon the mental processes of animals
abnormally from the mind of animals and of Man is greatly needed. Only
—is obviously the one and all-powerful here and there has anything been done
instrument with which he has con in this direction. Most promising
tended, and is destined hereafter to results have been obtained by such
contend, against extra-human Nature. observations as those on hypnotism
It is no less important for him to know and on various diseased and abnormal
the quality, the capacity, the mode of states of the brain. But the subject
operation of this instrument, its begin is so little explored that wild and
factors to his own advantage, and not
only draw heat from the bowels of the
earth for such purposes as are at
present within his scope, but even so
as to regulate, at some distant day,
ths climates of the earth’s surface, and
the winds and the rain which seem
now for ever beyond his control ?
�26
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
untested assertions as to the powers of
the mind are current, and have given
rise to strange beliefs, accepted by
many seriously intentioned men and
women. We boldly operate upon the
minds of children in our systems of
education without really knowing what
we are doing. We blindly assume that
the owners of certain minds, tradi
tionally trained in amusing elegancies,
are fit to govern their fellow-men and
administer vast provinces ; we assume
that the discovery and comprehension
of Nature’s processes must be the
work of very few and peculiar minds ;
that if we take care of the body the
mind will take care of itself. We
know really nothing of the heredity of
mental qualities, nor how to estimate
their presence or absence in the young
so as to develop the mind to greatest
advantage. We know the pain and
the penalty of muscular fatigue, but
we play with the brains of young and
old as though they were indestructible
machinery. What is called experi
mental psychology is only in its in
fancy ; but it is of urgent necessity
that it should be systematically pur
sued by the application of public funds,
in order that Man may know how to
make the best use of his only weapon
in his struggle to control Nature.
19.—Man’s Delay: Its Cause and
Remedy.
Even the slight and rapid review
just given of Man’s position, face to
face with Nature, enables us to see
what a tremendous step he has taken,
what desperate conditions he has
created, by the wonderful exercise of
his will; how much he has done and
can do to control the order of Nature,
and how urgent it is, beyond all that
words can say, for him to apply his
whole strength and capacity to gaining
further control, so that he may accom
plish his destiny and escape from
misery.
It is obvious enough that Man is at
present doing very little in this direc
tion ; so little that one seeks for an
explanation of his apathy, his seeming
paralysis.
The explanation is that the masses
of the people, in civilised as well as
uncivilised countries, are not yet aware
of the situation. When knowledge on
this matter reaches, as it inevitably
will in time, to the general population,
it is certain that the democracy will
demand that those who expend the
resources of the community, and as
Government officials undertake the
organisation of the national defence
and other great public services for the
common good, shall put into practice
the power of Nature-control which
has been gained by mankind, and
shall exert every sinew to obtain
more. To effect this the democracy
will demand that those who carry on
public affairs shall not be persons
solely acquainted with the elegant
fancies and stories of past ages, but
shall be trained in the acquisition of
natural knowledge and keenly active
in the skilful application of Nature
control to the development of the well
being of the community.
It would not be necessary to wait
for this pressure from below were the
well-to-do class — which in most
modern States exercises so large an
influence both in the actual adminis
tration of Governments and by example
—so situated as to be in any way
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
aware of the responsibilities which
rest upon it. Traditional education
has, owing to causes which are not far
to seek, deprived the well-to-do class
of a knowledge of, and interest in,
Man’s relation to Nature, and of his
power to control natural processes.
During the whole period of the growth
of Man’s knowledge of Nature—that is
to say, ever since the days of Bruno—
the education of the well-to-do has
been directed to the acquirement of
entertaining information and elegant
accomplishments, whilst “useful know
ledge ” has been despised and obtained
when considered necessary from lowerclass “ workmen ” at workmen’s wages.
It is of course not to be overlooked
that there have been notable excep
tions to this, but they have been excep
tions. Even at the present day, in
some civilised States, a body of clerks,
without any pretence to an education
in the knowledge of Nature, headed by
gentlemen of title, equally ignorant,
are entrusted with, and handsomely
paid and rewarded for, the superinten
dence of the armies, the navies, the
agriculture, the public works, the
fisheries, and even the public educa
tion of the State. When compelled
to seek the assistance of those who
have been trained in the knowledge of
Nature (for even in these States there
are a few such eccentric persons to be
found), the officials demand that such
assistance shall be freely given to them
without pay, or else offer to buy the
knowledge required at the rate paid to
a copying clerk.
This state of things is not one for
which it is possible to blame those
who, in blissful ignorance, contentedly
perform what they consider to be their
27
duty to their country. There are,
however, in many States institutions,
of vast influence in the education of
the whole community, known as
Universities. In many countries they
as well as the schools are directly con
trolled by the State. In England,
however, we are happy in having free
Universities, the older of which, though
in some important respects tied down
by law, yet have the power to deter
mine almost absolutely, not only what
shall be studied within their own walls,
but what shall be studied in all the
schools of the country frequented by
the children of the well-to-do.
It is the pride of our ancient Univer
sities that they are largely, if not ex
clusively, frequented by young men of
the class who are going to take an
active part in the public affairs of the
country — either as politicians and
statesmen, as governors of remote
colonies, or as leaders of the great
professions of the Church, the Law,
and Medicine. It would seem, then,
that if these Universities attached a
greater, even a predominant, import
ance to the studies which lead to the
knowledge and control of Nature, the
schools would follow their example,
and that the governing class of the
country would become acquainted with
the urgent need for more knowledge of
the kind, and for the immediate appli
cation in public affairs of that know
ledge which exists.
It would seem that in Great Britain,
at any rate, it would not be necessary,
were the Universities alive to the situa
tion, to await the pressure of demo
cracy, but that a better and more
rapid mode of development would
obtain; the influential and trusted
�28
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
leaders of the community would set
the example in seeking and using for
the good of the State the new know
ledge of Nature. The world has seen
with admiration and astonishment the
entire people of Japan follow the
example of its governing class in the
almost sudden adoption of the know
ledge and control of Nature as the
purpose of national education and the
guide of State administration. It is
possible that in a less rapid and
startling manner our old Universities
may, at no distant date, influence the
intellectual life of the more fortunate
of our fellow-citizens, and consequently
of the entire community. The weari
ness which is so largely expressed at
the present day in regard to human
effort—whether it be in the field of
politics, of literature, or of other art,
or in relation to the improvement of
social organisation and the individual
life—is possibly due to the fact that
we have exhausted the old sources of
inspiration, and have not yet learnt to
believe in the new. The “ return to
Nature,” which is sometimes vaguely
put forward as a cure for the all
pervading tcedium of this age, is
perhaps an imperfect expression of the
truth that it is time for civilized Man
not to return to the “ state of Nature,”
but to abandon his retrospective atti
tude and to take up whole-heartedly
the kingdom of Nature which it is his
destiny to rule. New hope, new life
will, when he does this, be infused
into every line of human activity:
Art will acquire a new impulse, and
politics become real and interesting.
To a community which believes in the
destiny of Man as the controller of
Nature, and has consciously entered
upon its fulfilment, there can be none
of the weariness and even despair
which comes from an exclusive wor
ship of the past. There can only be
encouragement in every victory gained,
hope and the realisation of hope.
Even in the face of the overwhelming
opposition and incredulity which now
unhappily have the upper hand, the
believer in the predestined triumph of
Man over Nature can exert himself to
place a contribution, however small,
in the great edifice of Nature-know
ledge, happy in the conviction that his
life has been worth living, has counted
to the good in the imperishable result.
20.—The Influence of Oxford.
If I venture now to consider more
specifically the influence exercised by
the University of Oxford upon the
welfare of the State and of the human
community in general, in view of the
conclusions which have been set forth
in what has preceded, I beg to say that
I do so with the greatest respect to the
opinions of others who differ from me.
When I say this I am not using an
empty formula. I mean that I believe
that there must be many University
men who are fair-minded and dis
interested, and have given special
attention to the matter of which I
wish to speak, and who are yet very
far from agreeing with me. I ask
them to consider what I have said,
and what I have further to say, in the
same spirit as that in which I approach
them.
It seems to me—and when I speak
of myself I would point out that I am
presenting the opinions of a large
number of educated men, and that
it will be better for me to avoid an
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
egotistical attitude-—it seems to us (I
prefer to say) that the University of
Oxford, by its present action in regard
to the choice and direction of subjects
of study, is exercising an injurious
influence upon the education of the
country, and especially upon the
education of those who will hereafter
occupy positions of influence, and will
largely determine both the action of
the State and the education and
opinions of those who will in turn
succeed them. The question has been
recently raised as to whether the
acquirement of a certain elementary
knowledge of the Greek language
should be required of all those who
desire to pursue their studies in this
University, and accordingly whether
the teaching of the elements of this
language should form a prominent
feature in the great schools of this
country. It seems to us that this is
only part of a much larger question—
namely, whether it is desirable to
continue to make the study of two
dead languages, and of the story of the
deeds of great men in the past, the
main, if not the exclusive, matter to
which the minds of the youth of the
well-to-do class are directed by our
schools and Universities. We have
come to the conclusion that this form
of education is a mistaken and injuri
ous one. We desire to make the chief
subject of education both in school
and in college a knowledge of Nature
as set forth in the sciences which are
spoken of as physics, chemistry, geo
logy, and biology. We think that all
education1 should consist, in the first
1 It is, perhaps, needful to point out that
what is aimed at is that the education of all
the youth of the country, both of pass-men
29
place, of this kind of knowledge, on
account of its commanding importance
both to the individual and to the
community. We think that every
man of even a moderate amount of
education should have acquired a
sufficient knowledge of these subjects
to enable him at any rate to appreciate
their value and to take an interest in
their progress and application to
human life. And we think further
that the ablest youths of the country
should be encouraged to proceed to
the extreme limit of present knowledge
in one or other branch of this know
ledge of Nature, so as to become
makers of new knowledge and the
possible discoverers of enduring im
provements in Man’s control of Nature.
No one should be educated so as to be
ignorant of the importance of these
things; and it should not be possible
for the greatest talent and mental
power to be diverted to other fields
of activity through the fact that the
necessary education and opportunity
in the pursuit of the knowledge of
Nature are withheld. The strongest
inducements in the way of reward
and consideration ought, we believe,
to be placed before a young man in the
direction of Nature-knowledge rather
than in the direction of other and far
less important subjects of study.
and of class-men, of girls as well as of boys,
of the rich as well as of the poor, should be
primarily directed to imparting an acquaint
ance with what we already possess in respect
of knowledge of Nature, and the training of
the pupil so as to enable him or her (a) to
make use of that knowledge, and (b) to take
part in gaining new knowledge of Nature, at
this moment needed but non-existent. This
does not involve the complete exclusion of
other subjects of instruction, to which about
one-third of the time and effort of school and
college life might be devoted.
�30
NATUBE’S INSUBGENT SON
In fact, we should wish to see the
classical and historical scheme of
education entirely abandoned, and its
place taken by a scheme of education
in the knowledge of Nature.
At the same time let me hasten to
say that few, if any, of us—and cer
tainly not he who writes these lines—
would wish to remove the acquirement
of the use of languages, the training in
the knowledge and perception of beauty
in literary art, and the feeding of the
mind with the great stories of the past
from a high and necessary position in
every grade of education.
It is a sad and apparently inevitable
accompaniment of all discussion of this
matter that those who advocate a great
and leading position for the knowledge
of Nature in education are accused of
desiring to abolish all study of litera
ture, history, and philosophy. This is,
in reality, so far from being the case
that we should most of us wish to see
a serviceable knowledge of foreign
languages, and a real acquaintance
with the beauties of English and
other literature, substituted for the
present unsuccessful efforts to teach
effectively either the language or
literature of the Greeks and Romans.
It should not be for one moment
supposed that those who attach the
vast importance which we do to the
knowledge of Nature imagine that
Man’s spirit can be satisfied by exclu
sive occupation with that knowledge.
We know as well as any that Man
does not live by bread alone. Though
the study of Nature is fitted to develop
great mental qualities—perseverance,
honesty, judgment, and initiative—we
do not suppose that it completes
Man’s mental equipment. Though
the knowledge of Nature calls upon,
excites, and gratifies the imagination
to a degree and in a way which is
peculiar to itself, we do not suppose
that it furnishes the opportunity for
all forms of mental activity. The
great joys of Art, the delights and
entertainment to be derived from the
romance and history of human char
acter, are not parts of it. They must
never be neglected. But are we not
justified in asserting that, for some
two hundred years or more, these
“ entertainments ” have been pursued
in the name of the highest education
and study to the exclusion of the far
weightier and more necessary know
ledge of Nature? “This should ye
have done, and yet not left the other
undone,” may justly be said to those
who have conducted the education of
our higher schools and Universities
along the pleasant lines of literature
and history, to the neglect of the
urgently needed “ improvement of
Natural Knowledge.” Nero was prob
ably a musician of taste and training,
and it was artistic and beautiful music
which he played while Rome was
burning; so, too, the studies of the
past carried on at Oxford have been
charming and full of beauty, whilst
England has lain, and lies, in mortal
peril for lack of knowledge of Nature.
It seems to be beyond dispute that
the studies, firstly of Latin, and much
more recently of Greek, were followed
in our Universities and in grammar
schools, not as educational exercises
in the use of language, but as keys to
unlock the storerooms—the books—in
which the knowledge of the ancients
was contained. So long as these keys
were needed, it was reasonable enough
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
that every well-educated man should
spend such time as was necessary in
providing himself with the key. But
now that the storerooms are empty,
now that their contents have been
appropriated and scattered far and
wide, in all languages of civilisation,
it seems to be merely an unreasoning
continuation of superannuated custom
to go on with the provision of these
keys. Such, however, is the force of
habit that it continues; new and
ingenious reasons for the practice are
put forward, whilst its original object
is entirely forgotten.
In the first place, it has come to be
regarded as a mark of good breeding,
and thus an end in itself, for a man to
have some first-hand acquaintance with
Latin and Greek authors, even when
he knows no other literature. It is a
fashion, like the wearing of a court
dress. This cannot be held to justify
the employment of most of the time
and energy of youth in its acquirement.
A second reason which is now put
forward for the practice is that the
effort and labour expended on the
provision of these keys—even though
it is admitted that they are useless—
are a wonderful and incomparably fine
exercise of the mind, fitting it for all
sorts of work. A theory of education
has been enunciated which fits in with
this defence of the continued attempt
to compel young men to acquire a
knowledge, however imperfect, of the
Latin and Greek languages. It is held
that what is called “ training the
mind ” is the chief, if not the only
proper, aim of education; and it is
declared that the continuation of the
study of those once useful, but now
useless, keys, Latin and Greek, is an
31
all-sufficient training. If this theory
were in accordance with the facts, the
conclusion in favour of giving a very
high place to the study so recom
mended would be inevitable. But the
facts do not support this theory.
Clever youths are taken and pressed
into the study of Greek and Latin,
and we are asked to conclude that
their cleverness is due to these studies.
On the other hand, we maintain that
though the study of grammar may be,
when properly carried out, a valuable
exercise, yet that it is easily converted
into a worthless one, and can never in
any case take the place of various other
forms of mental training, such as the
observation of natural objects, the
following out of experimental demon
stration of the qualities and relations
of natural bodies, and the devising and
execution of experiment as the test of
hypothesis. Apart from “ training,”
there is the need for providing the
mind with information as well as
method. The knowledge of Nature
is eagerly assimilated by young people,
and no training in mental gymnastics
can be a substitute for it or an excuse
for depriving the young of what is of
inestimable value and instinctively
desired.
The prominence which is assigned
to a familiarity with the details of
history, more especially of what may
be called biographical history, in the
educational system favoured by Oxford
seems to depend on the same causes
as those which have led to the main
tenance of the study of Greek and
Latin. To read history is a pleasant
occupation which has become a habit
and tradition. At one time men
believed that history repeats itself,
�32
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
.and it was thought to be a proper
and useful training for one who would
take part in public affairs to store his
mind with precedents and picturesque
narratives of prominent statesmen and
rulers in far-off days and distant lands.
As a matter of fact, it cannot be shown
that any statesman, or even the hum
blest politician, has ever been guided
to useful action by such knowledge.
History does not repeat itself, and the
man who thinks that it does will be
led by his fragmentary knowledge of
stories of the past into serious blun
ders. To the fashionable journalist
such biographical history furnishes
the seasoning for his essays on
political questions of the day. But
this does not seem to be a sufficient
reason for assigning so prominent a
place in University studies to this
kind of history as is at present the
case. The reason, perhaps, of the
favour which it receives is that it is
one of the few subjects which a man
of purely classical education can
pursue without commencing his edu
cation in elementary matters afresh.
It would be a serious mistake1 to
suppose that those who would give a
complete supremacy to the study of
Nature in our educational system do
not value and enjoy biographical
history for what it is worth as an
entertainment; or, further, that they
do not set great value upon the scien
tific study of the history of the struggles
of the races and nations of mankind, as
a portion of the knowledge of the
evolution of Man, capable of giving
conclusions of great value when it has
been further and more thoroughly
treated as a department of Anthro
pology. What seems to us undesirable
is that mere stories and bald records
of certain peoples should be put for
ward as matter with which the minds
of children.and young men are to be
occupied, to the exclusion of the allimportant matters comprised in the
knowledge of Nature.
There are, it is well known, not a
few who regard the present institution
of Latin and Greek and so-called
History, in the pre-eminent place
which they occupy in Oxford and the
great schools of the country, as some
thing of so ancient and fundamental a
character that to question the wisdom
of that institution seems an odious
proceeding, partaking of the nature of
blasphemy. This state of mind takes
its origin in a common error, due to
the fact that a straightforward account
of the studies pursued in the University
during the last five hundred years has
never been written. Our present cur
riculum is a mere mushroom growth
of the last century, and has no claim
whatever to veneration. Greek was
studied by but a dozen or two
specialists in Oxford two hundred
and fifty years ago. In those days,
in proportion to what had been ascer
tained in that subject and could be
taught, there was a great and general
interest in the University in the know
ledge of Nature, such as we should
gladly see revived at the present day.
As a matter of fact, it is only within
1 I desire especially to draw the attention the last hundred years that the dogma
of those who have misunderstood and mis of compulsory Greek, and the value of
represented my estimate of the importance
of the study of History to this paragraph. what is now called a classical educa
—E. B. L.
tion, has been promulgated. These
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
things are not historically of ancient
date ; they are not essentials of
Oxford. We are, therefore, well
within our right in questioning the
wisdom of their continuance in so
favoured a position, and we are war
ranted in expressing the hope that
those who can change the policy of
the University and Colleges in this
matter will, at no distant day, do so.1
It is sometimes urged that Oxford
should contentedly resign herself to
the overwhelming predominance given
to the study of ancient elegance and
historic wisdom within her walls. It
ip said that she may well be reserved
for these delightful pursuits, whilst
newer institutions should do the hard
work of aiding Man in his conquest of
Nature. At first sight, such a pro
posal has a tempting character: we
are charmed with the suggestion that
our beautiful Oxford should be en
closed by a ring fence, and cut off for
ever from the contamination of the
world. But a few moments’ reflection
must convince most of us that such a
treatment of Oxford is an insult to
her, and an impossibility. Oxford is
not dead. Only a few decades have
passed—a mere fraction of her life
time—since she was free from the
oppression of grammar-school studies,
and sent forth Robert Boyle and Chris
topher Wren to establish the New
Philosophy of the Invisible College in
London. She seems, to some of us,
to have been used not quite wisely,
1 [It is practically certain now, in 1912—
after the failure of the attempts of the last
five years at reform of the University initiated
by its own members—that the Oxford of to
day cannot, owing to its law-enforced system
of government, reform itself. A change in
that mode of government is inevitable.]
33
perhaps not quite fairly, in the brief
period which has elapsed since that
time. Why should she not shake her
self free again, and give, hereafter,
most, if not the whole, of her wealth
and strength to the urgent work which
is actually pursued in every other
University of the world as a chief aim
and duty ?
The fact that Oxford attracts the
youth of the country to her, and so
determines the education offered in
the great schools, is a sufficient answer
to those who wish to perpetuate the
present employment of her resources
in the subvention and encouragement
of comparatively unimportant, though
fascinating (even too fascinating),
studies, to the neglect of the pressing
necessary knowledge of'Nature. Those
who enjoy great influence in the affairs
of the University tell us with pride
that Oxford not only determines what
our best schools shall teach, but has,
as a main preoccupation, the education
of statesmen, pro-consuls, leaders of
the learned professions, and members
of Parliament! Undoubtedly this
claim is well founded; and its truth
is the reason why we cannot be con
tent with the maintenance by the
University of the compulsory study of
Greek and Latin, and the neglect to
make the study of Nature an integral
and predominant part of every man’s
education.
To return to my original contention
—the knowledge and control of Nature
is Man’s destiny and his greatest need.
To enable future leaders of the com
munity to comprehend this, to per
ceive what the knowledge and control
of Nature are, and what are the steps
by which they are gained and increased,
�34
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
is the duty of a great University. To
neglect this is to retard the approach
of well-being and happiness, and to
injure humanity.
I beg, finally, for toleration from
those who do not share my opinions.
I am well aware that they are open to
the objection that they partake more
of the nature of dreams of the future
than of practical proposals.1 That,
perhaps, may be accepted as my excuse
for indulging in them. There are, and
always have been, dreamers in Oxford;
and beautiful dreams they have
dreamed—some of the past, and some
of the future. The most fascinating
dreams are not, unfortunately, always
realised; but it is sometimes worth
while to tell one’s dream, for that may
bring it a step nearer to “ coming
true.”
1 The practical steps which would correspond
to the views enunciated in this discourse are
two. First, the formation of an educational
association to establish one or more schools
and colleges in which Nature-knowledge and
training in Nature-searching should be the
chief matters to which attention would be
given, whilst reasonable methods would also
be employed for implanting in the minds of
the students a love and understanding of
literature and other forms of art. Those who
desired such an education for their children
would support these schools and colleges, just
as, in the days of Anglican exclusiveness, the
Nonconformists and Roman Catholics sup
ported independent educational institutions.
The second practical step would be the forma
tion of a political union which would make
due respect to efficiency—that is to say, to a
knowledge of Nature—a test question in all
political contests. No candidate for Parlia
ment would receive the votes of the union
unless he were either himself educated in a
knowledge of Nature, or promised his support
exclusively to Ministers who would insist on
the utilisation of Nature-knowledge in the
administration of the great departments of
State, and would take active measures of a
financial character to develop, with far greater
rapidity and certainty than is at present the
case, that inquiry into and control of Nature
which is the indispensable factor in human
welfare and progress. Such a programme
will, I hope, at no distant date, obtain the
support of a sufficient number of Parlia
mentary voters to raise political questions of
a more genuine and interesting character than
those which many find so tedious at the
present moment.
[I have more than once been asked to write
on the question as to why, at the present
moment, there is so great a lack of “ efficient ”
men in all varieties and grades of occupation.
I venture to say that it is due to the mistaken
education administered in schools of all grades,
as well as in the Universities. A true and
skilfully graduated instruction in the facts
ascertained as to natural things, and m the
APPENDIX
I add here a brief statement published by me
in the “ Times,” May 17,1903, which touches
on the question of the origin of life and
certain theories of creation.
“ It seems to me that, were the dis
cussion excited by Lord Kelvin’s state
ments to the Christian Association at
University College allowed to close in
its present phase, the public would
be misled and injustice done both to
Lord Kelvin and his critics. I there
fore beg you to allow me to point out
what appear to me to be the signi
ficant features of the matter under
discussion.
“ Lord Kelvin, whose eminence as
a physicist gives a special interest to
his opinion upon any subject, made at
University College, or in his subse
quent letter to you, the following
statements:—“ 1. That ‘ fortuitous concourse of
atoms ’ is not an inappropriate des
cription of the formation of a crystal.
“ 2. That ‘ fortuitous concourse of
atoms ’ is utterly absurd in respect to
the coming into existence, or the
growth, or the continuation of the
methods by which they are ascertained, would
produce “ efficient ” men—men who can think
and act reasonably as the result of under
standing. But the teachers must first of all
be taught, and the teachers of the teachers !]
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
molecular combinations presented in
the bodies of living things.
“ 3. That, though inorganic pheno
mena do not do so, yet the phenomena
of such living things as a sprig of moss,
a microbe, a living animal—looked at
and considered as matters of scientific
investigation—compel us to conclude
that there is scientific reason for believ
ing in the existence of a creative and
directive purpose.
“ 4. That modern biologists are
coming once more to a firm accept
ance of something, and that is—a vital
principle.
“ In your article on the discussion
which has followed these statements
you declare that this (the opinions I
have quoted above) is ‘ a momentous
conclusion,’ and that it is a vital point
in the relation of science to religion.
“I do not agree with that view of
the matter, although I find Lord
Kelvin’s statements full of interest.
So far as I have been able to ascertain,
after many years in which these
matters have engaged my attention,
there is no relation, in the sense of
a connection or influence, between
science and religion. There is, it is
true, often an antagonistic relation
between exponents of science and ex
ponents of religion when the latter
illegitimately misrepresent or deny the
conclusions of scientific research or
try to prevent its being carried on, or,
again, when the former presume, by
magnifying the extremely limited con
clusions of science, to deal in a destruc
tive spirit with the very existence of
those beliefs and hopes which are
called ‘ religion.' Setting aside such
excusable and purely personal collisions
between rival claimants for authority
and power, it appears to me that
science proceeds on its path without
any contact with religion, and that
religion has not, in its essential quali
ties, anything to hope for, or to fear,
from science.
“ The whole order of nature, includ
35
ing living and lifeless matter—from
man to gas—is a network of mechanism
the main features and many details of
which have been made more or less
obvious to the wondering intelligence
of mankind by the labour and ingenuity
of scientific investigators. But no
sane man has ever pretended, since
science became a definite body of doc
trine, that we know, or ever can hope
to know or conceive of the possibility
of knowing, whence this mechanism
has come, why it is there, whither it
is going, and what there may or may
not be beyond and beside it which our
senses are incapable of appreciating.
These things are not ‘ explained ’ by
science, and never can be.
“ Lord Kelvin speaks of a ‘ fortuitous
concourse of atoms,’ but I must confess
that I am quite unable to apprehend
what he means by that phrase in the
connection in which he uses it. It
seems to me impossible that by for
tuitous ’ he can mean something which
is not determined by natural cause
and therefore is not part of the order
of nature. When an ordinary man
speaks of a concourse having arisen
‘ by chance ’ or ‘ fortuitously ’ he means
merely that the determining conditions
which have led by natural causation
to its occurrence were not known to
him beforehand; he does not mean to
assert that it has arisen without the
operation of such determining condi
tions and I am quite unable to under
stand how it can be maintained that
‘ the concourse of atoms ’ forming a
crystal, or even a lump of mud, is in
any philosophic sense more correctly
described as ‘ fortuitous ’ than is the
concourse of atoms which has given
rise to a sprig of moss or an animal.
It would be a matter of real interest
to many of your readers if Lord Kelvin
would explain more precisely what he
means by the distinction which he
has, somewhat dogmatically, laid down
I between the formation of a crystal as
' ‘ fortuitous ’ and the formation of an
�36
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
organism as due to ‘ creative and
directive purpose.’
‘ I am not misrepresenting what
Lord Kelvin has said on this subject
when I say that he seems to have
formed the conception of a creator
who, first of all, without care or fore
sight, has produced what we call
matter,’ with its necessary properties,
and allowed it to aggregate and crystal
lise as a painter might allow his
pigments to run and intermingle on
his palette; and then, as a second
effort, has brought some of these
elements together with ‘ creative and
directive purpose,’ mixing them, as it
were, with ‘ a vital principle ’ so as to
form living things, just as the painter
might pick out certain colours from
his confused palette and paint a
picture.
This conception of the intermittent
action of creative power and purpose
does not, I confess, commend itself to
me. That, however, is not so surpris
ing as that it should be thought that
this curious conception of the action
of creative power is of value to religion.
Whether the intermittent theory is a
true or an erroneous conception seems
to me to have nothing to do with
‘ religion ’ in the large sense of that
word so often misused. It seems to
me to,be a kind of mythology, and I
should have thought could be of no
special assistance to teachers of Chris
tianity. Such theories of divided
creative operations are traceable his
torically to polytheism.
Lastly, with reference to Lord
Kelvin’s statement that * modern bio
logists are coming once more to a firm
acceptance of something—and that is
a vital principle.” ’ I will not venture
to doubt that Lord Kelvin has such
persons among his acquaintance. On
the other hand, I feel some confidence
in stating that a more extensive ac
quaintance with modern biologists
would have led Lord Kelvin to perceive
that those whom he cites are but a
trifling percentage of the whole. I do
not myself know of anyone of admitted
leadership among modern biologists
who is showing signs of ‘ coming to a
belief in the existence of a vital
principle.’
Biologists were, not many years
ago, so terribly hampered by these
hypothetical entities—‘ vitality,’ ‘ vital
spirits,’ ‘ anima animans,’ ‘ archetypes,’
vis medicatrix,’ ‘ providential artifice,’
and others which I cannot now
enumerate—that they are very shy of
setting any of them up again. Physi
cists, on the other hand, seem to have
got on very well with their proble
matic entities, their ‘ atoms ’ and
ether,’ and ‘the sorting demon of
Maxwell.’ Hence,perhaps, Lord Kelvin
offers to us, with a light heart, the
hypothesis of a ‘ vital principle ’ to
smooth over some of our admitted
difficulties. On the other hand, we
biologists, knowing the paralysing in
fluence of such hypotheses in the
past, are as unwilling to have any
thing to do with ‘ a vital principle,’
even though Lord Kelvin erroneously
thinks we are coming to it, as we are
to accept other strange ‘ entities ’
pressed upon us by other physicists of
a modern and singularly adventurous
type. Modern biologists (I am glad
to be able to affirm) do not accept the
hypothesis of ‘ telepathy ’ advocated
by Sir Oliver Lodge, nor that of the in
trusions of disembodied spirits pressed
upon them by others of the same
school.
“We biologists take no stock in
these mysterious entities. We think
it a more helpful method to be patient
and to seek by observation of, and
experiment with, the phenomena of
growth and development to trace the
evolution of life and of living things
without the facile and sterile hypo
thesis of ‘ a vital principle.’ Similarly,
we seek by the study of cerebral
disease to trace the genesis of the
phenomena which are supposed by
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
37
some physicists who have strayed into I announcing the ‘ discovery ’ of ‘ tele
biological fields to justify them in I pathy ’ and a belief m ghosts.
Chapter II.
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE, 1881-1906
I PROPOSE to give in the following
pages an outline of the advance of
science in the twenty-five years which
immediately preceded the writing of
them. It is necessary to distinguish
two main kinds of advancement, both of
which are important. Francis Bacon
gave the title Advancement of Learning
to that book in which he explained
not merely the methods by which the
increase of knowledge was possible,
but advocated the promotion of know
ledge to a new and influential position
in the organisation of human society.
His purpose, says Dean Church, was
“ to make knowledge really and intel
ligently the interest, not of the school
or the study or the laboratory only,
but of society at large.” So that in
surveying the advancement of science
in the past quarter of a century we
should ask not only what are the new
facts discovered, the new ideas and
conceptions which have come into
activity, but what progress has science
made in becoming really and intelli
gently the interest of society at large.
Is there evidence that there is an
increase in the influence of science on
the lives of our fellow-citizens and in
the great affairs of the State ? Is
there an increased provision for secur
ing the progress of scientific investiga
tion in proportion to the urgency of
its need or an increased disposition to
secure the employment of really com
petent men trained in scientific inves
tigation for the public service ?
1.—The Increase of Knowledge in the
Several Branches of Science.
The boundaries of my own under
standing and the practical considera
tion of what is appropriate to a brief
essay must limit my attempt to give to
the general reader some presentation
of what has been going on in the
workshops of science in this last
quarter of a century. My point of
view is essentially that of the
naturalist, and in my endeavour to
speak of some of the new things and
new properties of things discovered in
recent years I find it is impossible to
give any systematic or detailed account
of what has been done in each division
of science. All that I shall attempt is
to mention some of the discoveries
which have aroused my own interest
and admiration. I feel, indeed, that it
is necessary to ask forbearance for my
presumption in daring to treat of so
many subjects in which I cannot claim
to speak as an authority, but only as a
�38
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
younger brother full of fraternal pride
and sympathy in the glorious achieve
ments of the great experimentalists
and discoverers of our day.
As one might expect, the progress of
the Knowledge of Nature (for it is to
that rather than to the historical,
moral, and mental sciences that
English-speaking people refer when
they use the word “science”) has
consisted, in the last twenty-five years,
in the amplification and fuller verifica
tion of principles and theories already
accepted, and in the discovery of
hitherto unknown things which either
have fallen into place in the existing
scheme of each science or have neces
sitated new views, some not very
disturbing to existing general concep
tions, others of a more startling and,
at first sight, disconcerting character.
Nevertheless, I think I am justified in
saying that, exciting and of entrancing
interest as have been some of the
discoveries of the past few years, there
has been nothing to lead us to conclude
that we have been on the wrong path,
nothing which is really revolutionary
—that is to say, nothing which cannot
be accepted by an intelligible modifica
tion of previous conceptions. There
is, in fact, continuity and healthy
evolution in the realm of science.
Whilst some onlookers have declared
to the public that science is at an end,
its possibilities exhausted, and but little
of the hopes it raised realised, others
have asserted, on the contrary, that
the new discoveries—such as those
relating to the X-rays and to radium
—are so inconsistent with previous
knowledge as to shake the foundations
of science, and to justify a belief in
any and every absurdity of an un
restrained fancy. These two recipro
cally destructive accusations are due
to a class of persons who must be
described as the enemies of science.
Whether their attitude is due to
ignorance or traditions of self-interest,
such persons exist. It is one of the
objects of our scientific associations
and societies to combat those asser
tions, and to demonstrate, by the dis
coveries announced at their meetings
and the consequent orderly building up
of the great fabric of “natural know
ledge,” that Science has not come to
the end of her work—has, indeed, only
as yet given mankind a foretaste of
what she has in store for it—that her
methods and her accomplished results
are sound and trustworthy, serving
with perfect adaptability for the
increase of true discovery and the
expansion and development of those
general conceptions of the processes
of Nature at which she aims.
New Chemical, Elements.—There can
be no doubt that the past quarter of a
century will stand out for ever in
human history as that in which
new chemical elements, not of an
ordinary type, but possessed of truly
astounding properties, were made
known with extraordinary rapidity
and sureness of demonstration. In
teresting as the others are, it is the
discovery of radio-activity and of the
element radium which so far exceeds
all others in importance that we may
well account it a supreme privilege
that it has fallen to our lot to live in
the days of this discovery. No single
discovery ever made by the searchers
of Nature even approaches that of
radio-activity in respect of the novelty
of the properties of matter suddenly
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
revealed by it. A new conception of
the structure of matter is necessitated
and demonstrated by it; and yet, so
far from being destructive and discon
certing, thp new conception fits in
with, grows out of, and justifies the
older schemes which our previous
knowledge has formulated.
Before saying more of radio-activity,
which is apt to eclipse in interest every
other topic of discourse, I must recall
the discovery of the five inert gaseous
elements by Rayleigh and Ramsay,
which belongs to the period on which
we are looking back. It was found
that nitrogen obtained from the atmo
sphere invariably differed in weight
from nitrogen obtained from one of
its chemical combinations ; and thus
the conclusion was arrived at by
Rayleigh that a distinct gas is present
in the atmosphere, to the extent of 1
per cent., which had hitherto passed
for nitrogen. This gas was separated,
and to it the name argon (the lazy
one) was given, on account of its
incapacity to combine with any other
element. Subsequently this argon was
found by Ramsay to be itself impure,
and from it he obtained three other
gaseous elements equally inert—
namely, neon, krypton, and xenon.
These were all distinguished from one
another by the spectrum, the sign
manual of an element given by the
light emitted in each case by the gas
when in an incandescent condition. A
fifti. inert gaseous element was dis
covered by Ramsay as a constituent
of certain minerals which was proved
by its spectrum to be identical with
an element discovered thirty years
ago by Sir Norman Lockyer in the
atmosphere of the sun, where it exists
39
in enormous quantities. Lockyer had
given the name u helium ” to this new
solar element, and Ramsay thus found
it locked up in certain rare minerals in
the crust of the earth.
But by helium we are led back to
radium, for it was found by Sir
William Ramsay and Dr. Soddy in 1904
that helium is actually formed by a
gaseous emanation from radium. As
tounding as the statement seems, yet
that is one of the many unprecedented
facts which recent study has brought
to light. The alchemist’s dream is, if
not realised, at any rate justified. One
element is actually under our eyes con
verted into another; the element radium
decays into a gas which changes
into another element—namely, helium.
Radium, this wonder of wonders,
was discovered owing to the study of
the remarkable phosphorescence, as it
is called—the glowing without heat—
of glass vacuum-tubes through which
electric currents are made to pass.
Crookes, Lenard, and Rontgen each
played an important part in this
study, showing that peculiar rays or
linear streams of at least three distinct
kinds are set up in such tubes—rays
which are themselves invisible, but
have the property of making glass or
other bodies which they strike glow
with phosphorescent light. The cele
brated Rontgen-rays make ordinary
glass give out a bright green light;
but they pass through it, and cause
phosphorescence outside in various
substances, such as barium platinocyanide, calcium tungstate, and many
other such salts; they also act on a
photographic plate and “ discharge ”
an electrified body such as an electro
scope. But the most remarkable
�40
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
feature about them is their power
of penetrating substances opaque to
ordinary light. They will pass through
thin metal plates or black paper or
wood, but are stopped by more or less
dense material. Hence it has been
possible to obtain “ shadow pictures ”
or skiagraphs by allowing the invisible
Rontgen-rays to pass through a limb,
or even a whole animal, the denser
bone stopping the rays, whilst the
skin, flesh, and blood let them through.
They are allowed to fall (still invisible)
on to a photographic plate, when a
picture like an ordinary permanent
photograph is obtained by their
chemical action, or they may be
made to exert their phosphorescence
producing power on a glass plate
covered with a thin coating of a
phosphorescent salt such as barium
platino-cyanide, when a temporary
picture in light and shade is seen.
The rays discovered by Rontgen
were known as the X-rays, because
their exact nature was unknown. Other
rays studied in the electrified vacuum
tubes are known as cathode rays or
radiant corpuscles, and others, again,
as the Lenard rays.
It occurred to M. Henri Becquerel,
as he himself tells us, to inquire
whether other phosphorescent bodies
besides the glowing vacuum-tubes of
the electrician’s laboratory can emit
penetrating rays like the X-rays. I
say <! other phosphorescent bodies,”
for this power of glowing without heat
—of giving out, so to speak, cold light
—is known to be possessed by many
mineral substances. It has become
familiar to the public in the form of
“ phosphorescent paint,” which con
tains sulphide of calcium, a substance
which shines in the dark after expo
sure to sunlight—that is to say, is
phosphorescent. Other sulphides and
the minerals fluor-spar, apatite, some
gems, and, in fact, a whole list of sub
stances have, under different condi
tions of treatment, this power of
phosphorescence or shining in the
dark without combustion or chemical
change. All, however, require some
special treatment, such as exposure to
sunlight or heat or pressure, to elicit
the phosphorescence, which is of short
duration only. Many of the com
pounds of a somewhat uncommon
metallic element called uranium, used
for giving a fine green colour to glass,
are phosphorescent substances, and it
was, fortunately, one of them which
Henri Becquerel chose for experiment.
Henri Becquerel is professor in the
Jardin des Plantes of Paris ; his labora
tory is a delightful old-fashioned build
ing, which had for me a special interest
and sanctity when, a few years ago, I
visited him there, for, a hundred years
before, it was the dwelling-house of
the great Cuvier. Here Henri Bec
querel’s father and grandfather—men
renowned throughout the world for
their discoveries in mineralogy, elec
tricity, and light—had worked, and
here he had himself gone almost daily
from his earliest childhood. Many an
experiment bringing new knowledge
on the relations of light and electricity
had Henri Becquerel carried out in
that quiet old-world place before the
day on which, about eighteen years
ago,1 he made the experimental inquiry,
“ Does uranium give off penetrating
rays like Rontgen rays ? ” He wrapped
1 [ I have altered these numbers so as to
make them correct in 1912.]
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
a photographic plate in black paper,
and on it placed and left lying there
for twenty-four hours some uranium
salt. He had placed a cross, cut out
in thin metallic copper, under the
uranium powder, so as to give some
shape to the photographic print should
one be produced. It was produced.
Penetrating rays were given off by the
uranium: the black paper was pene
trated, and the form of the copper
cross was printed on a dark ground
(Fig. 9). The copper was also pene
trated to some extent by the rays from
the uranium, so that its image was
not left actually white. Only one
step more remained before Becquerel
made his great discovery. It was
known, as I stated just now, that
sulphide of calcium and similar sub
stances become, phosphorescent when
exposed to sunlight, and lose this
phosphorescence after a few hours.
Becquerel thought at first that perhaps
the uranium salt had acquired its
power similarly by exposure to light;
but very soon, by experimenting with
uranium salt long kept in the dark, he
found that the emission of penetrating
rays, giving photographic effects, was
produced spontaneously without any
immediately antecedent action of light,
heat, or pressure upon the salt. The
emission of rays by this particular
sample of uranium salt has shown no
sign of diminution since this discovery.
The emission of penetrating rays by
uranium was soon found to be inde
pendent of its phosphorescence. Phos
phorescent bodies, as such, do not
emit penetrating rays. Uranium com
pounds, wThether phosphorescent or
not, emit, and continue to emit, these
penetrating rays, capable of passing
41
through black paper and in a less
degree through metallic copper. They
do not derive this property from the
action of light or any other treatment.
The emission of these rays discovered
by Becquerel is a new property of
matter. It is called “ radio-activity,”
and the rays are called Becquerel rays.
From this discovery by Becquerel
to the detection and separation of the
new element radium is an easy step
in thought, though one of enormous
Fig. 9.—Henri Becquerel’s Discovery
Radio-Activity.
of
Photographic print or skiagraph of a copper
Maltese Cross produced by uranium, salt placed
as a heap of powder on the surface of black
paper wrapped round a sensitive plate. Between
the paper and the uranium powder the fiat copper
cross was interposed. The rays from the uranium
salt have penetrated the black paper, but have
been intercepted to a large extent by the copper
cross—so that the sensitive silver plate is darkened
all about the cross-over an area corresponding
to that of the heap of uranium salt, but is left
pale where the copper figure blocked the path of
the active rays given off by the uranium, partially
but not wholly. It was thus proved that the rays
from the uranium salt can pass through blackened
paper and also, though to a less extent, through
a plate of copper.
labour and difficulty in practice. Pro
fessor Pierre Curie (whose name I
cannot mention without expressing
the grief caused to all men of science
by the sad accident by which his life
was taken) and his wife, Madame
Sklodowska Curie, incited by Bec
querel’s discovery, examined the ore
called pitch-blende, which is worked in
mines in Bohemia and is found also
in Cornwall. It is the ore from which
�42
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
all commercial uranium is extracted.
The Curies found that pitch-blende
has a radio-activity four times more
powerful than that of metallic uranium
itself. They at once conceived the
idea that the radio-activity of the
uranium salts examined by Becquerel
is due not to the uranium itself, but
to another element present with it in
variable quantities. This proved to
be in part true. The refuse of the
first processes by which in the manu
facturer’s works the uranium is ex
tracted from its ore, pitch-blende, was
found to contain four times more of
the radio-active matter than does the
pure uranium. By a long series of
fusions, solutions, and crystallisations
the Curies succeeded in “ hunting
down,” as it were, the radio-active
element. The first step gave them a
powder mixed with barium chloride,
and having 2,000 times the activity of
the uranium in which Becquerel first
proved the existence of the new pro
perty—radio-activity. Then step by
step they purified it to a condition
10,000 times, then to 100,000 times,
and finally to the condition of a
crystalline salt having 1,800,000 times
the activity of Becquerel’s sample of
uranium. The purification could not
be carried further, but the extraor
dinary minuteness of the quantity of
the pure radio-active substance ob
tained and the amount of labour and
time expended in preparing it may be
judged of from the fact that of one ton
of the pitch-blende ore submitted to
the process of purification only the
hundredth of a gram—the one-seventh
of a grain—remained.
The amount of radium in pitch
blende is one ten-millionth per cent.—
rarer than gold in sea-water. The
marvel of this story and of all that
follows consists largely in the skill
and accuracy with which our chemists
and physicists have learnt to deal with
such infinitesimal quantities, and the
gigantic theoretical results which are
securely posed on this pin-point of
substantial matter.
The Curies at once determined that
the minute quantity of colourless
crystals they had obtained was the
chloride of a new metallic element
with the atomic weight 225, to which
they gave the name “radium.” The
proof that radium is an element is
given by its “ sign-manual ” — the
spectrum which it shows to the ob
server when in the incandescent state.
It consists of six bright lines and three
fainter lines in the visible part of the
spectrum, and of three very intense
lines in the ultra-violet (invisible) part
(Fig. 10). A very minute quantity is
enough for this observation ; the lines
given by radium are caused by no
other known element in heaven or
earth. They prove its title to be
entered on the roll-call of elements.
The atomic weight was determined
in the usual way by precipitating the
chlorine in a solution of radium chloride
by means of silver. None of the
precious element was lost in the pro
cess, but the Curies never had enough
of it to venture on any attempt to pre
pare pure metallic radium. This is a
piece of extravagance no one has yet
dared to undertake. Altogether the
Curies did not have more than some
four or five grains of chloride of radium
to experiment with, and the total
amount prepared and now in the hands
of scientific men in various parts of
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
the world probably does not amount
to more than an ounce or two at most.
When Professor Curie lectured on
radium nine years ago at the Royal
Institution in London, he made use
of a small tube, an inch long and of
one-eightii bore, containing nearly the
43
whole of his precious store, wrenched
by such determined labour and con
summate skill from tons of black,
shapeless pitch-blende. On his return
to Paris, he was one day demonstrat
ing in his lecture - room with this
precious tube the properties of radium,
�u
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
when it slipped from his hands, broke,
and scattered far and wide the most
precious and magical powder ever
dreamed of by alchemist or artist of
romance. Every scrap of dust was
immediately and carefully collected,
dissolved, and re-crystallised, and the
disaster averted with a loss of but a
minute fraction of the invaluable
product.
Thus, then, we have arrived at the
discovery of radium—the new element
endowed in an intense form with the
new property, “radio-activity,” dis
covered by Becquerel. The wonder
of this powder, incessantly and without
loss, under any and all conditions
pouring forth, by virtue of its own
intrinsic property, powerful rays cap
able of penetrating opaque bodies, and
of exciting phosphorescence and acting
on photographic plates, can perhaps
be realised when we reflect that it is
as marvellous as though we should
dig up a stone which, without external
influence or change, continually poured
forth light or heat, manufacturing both
in itself, and not only continuing to do
so without appreciable loss or change,
but necessarily having always done so
for countless ages whilst sunk beyond
the ken of man in the bowels of the
earth.
Wonderful as the story is, so far it
is really simple and commonplace com
pared with what yet remains to be
told. I will only barely and abruptly
state the fact that radio-activity has
been discovered in other elements,
some very rare, such as actinium and
polonium; others more abundant and
already known, such as thorium and
uranium, though their radio-activity
was not known until Becquerel’s
pioneer discovery. It is a little
strange, and no doubt significant,
that, after all, pure uranium is found
to have a radio-activity of its own, and
not to have been altogether usurping
the rights of its infinitesimal associate.
The wonders connected with radium
really begin when the experimental
examination of the properties of a few
grains is made. What I am saying
here is not a systematic, technical
account of radium ; so I shall venture
to relate some of the story as it im
presses me.
Leaving aside for a moment what
has been done in regard to the more
precise examination of the rays emitted
by radium, the following astonishing
facts have been found out in regard
to it: (1) If a glass tube containing
radium is much handled or kept in
the waistcoat pocket, it produces a
destruction of the skin and flesh over
a small area—in fact, a sore place.
(2) The smallest trace of radium
brought into a room where a charged
electroscope is present causes the dis
charge of the electroscope. So power
ful is this electrical action of radium
that a very sensitive electrometer can
detect the presence of a quantity of
radium five hundred thousand times
more minute than that which can be
detected by the spectroscope (that is
to say, by the spectroscopic examina
tion of a flame in which minute traces
of radium are present). (3) Badium
actually realises one of the properties
of the hypothetical stone to which I
compared it giving out light and heat.
For it does give out heat, which it
makes itself incessantly and without
appreciable loss of substance or energy
(“ appreciable ” is here an important
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
qualifying term). It is also faintly
self-luminous. Fairly sensitive ther
mometers show that a few granules
of radium salt have always a higher
temperature than that of surrounding
bodies. Eadium has been proved to
give out enough heat to melt rather
more than its own weight of ice every
hour; enough heat in one hour to
raise its own weight of water from
the freezing-point to the boiling-point.
After a year and six weeks a gram of
radium has emitted enough heat to
raise the temperature of a thousand
kilograms of water one degree. And
this is always going on. Even a small
quantity of radium diffused through
the earth will suffice to keep up its
temperature against all loss by radia
tion ! If the sun consists of a fraction
of one per cent, of radium, this will
account for and make good the heat
that is annually lost by it in its present
greatly cooled condition.
This is a tremendous fact, upsetting
all the calculations of physicists as to
the duration in past and future of the
sun’s heat and the temperature of the
earth’s surface. The geologists and
the biologists have long contended that
some thousand million years must
have passed during which the earth’s
surface has presented approximately
the same conditions of temperature as
at present, in order to allow time for
the evolution of living things and the
formation of the aqueous deposits of
the earth’s crust. The physicists,
notably Professor Tait and Lord Kel
vin, refused to allow more than ten
million years (which they subsequently
increased to a hundred million), basing
this estimate on the rate of cooling of
a sphere of the size and composition
45
of the earth. They have assumed
that its material is self-cooling. But,
as Huxley pointed out, mathematics
will not give a true result when ap
plied to erroneous data. It has now,
within these last five years, become
evident that the earth’s material is
not absolutely self-cooling, but, on the
contrary, to some extent, self-heating.
And away go the restrictions imposed
by physicists on geological time. They
now are willing to give us, not merely
a thousand million years, but as many
more as we want.
And now I have to mention the
strangest of all the proceedings of
radium—a proceeding in .which the
other radio-active bodies, actinium
and thorium, resemble it. This pro
ceeding has been entirely the discovery
of Eutherford [now, 1912, Professor
in Manchester], and his name must be
always associated with it. Eadium (he
discovered) is continually giving off,
apart from and in addition to the
rectilinear darting rays of Becquerel,
an “ emanation ”—a gaseous “ emana
tion.” This “ emanation ” is radio
active—that is, gives off Becquerel
rays—and deposits “ something ” upon
bodies brought near the radium, so
that they become radio-active, and
remain so for a time after the radium
is itself removed. This emanation is
always being formed by a radium salt,
and may be most easily collected by
dissolving the salt in water, when it
comes away with a rush, as a gas.
Sixty milligrams of bromide of radium
yielded to Eamsay and Soddy .124
(or about one-eighth) of a cubic milli
metre of this gaseous emanation.
What is it? It cannot be destroyed
or altered by heat or by chemical
�46
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
agents; it is a heavy gas, having a
molecular density of 100, and it can
be condensed to a liquid by exposing
it to the great cold of liquid air. It
gives a peculiar spectrum of its own,
and is probably a hitherto unknown
inert gas—a new element similar to
argon.1 But this by no means com
pletes its history, even so far as ex
periments have as yet gone.
The
radium emanation decays, changes its
character altogether, and loses half its
radio-activity every four days. Pre
cisely at the same rate as it decays
the specimen of radium salt from
which it was removed forms a new
quantity of emanation, having just the
amount of radio-activity which has
been lost by the old emanation. All
is not known about the decay of the
emanation; but one thing is abso
lutely certain, having first been dis
covered by Ramsay and Soddy, and
subsequently confirmed by independent
experiment by Madame Curie. It is
this: After being kept three or four
days, the emanation becomes, in part
at least, converted into helium—the
light gas (second only in the list of
elements to hydrogen) found thirty
years ago by Lockyer in the sun,
and since obtained in some quantities
from rare radio - active minerals by
Ramsay ! The proof of the formation
of helium from the radium emanation
is, of course, obtained by the spectro
scope, and its evidence is beyond assail
(see Pig. 11). Here, then, is the par
tial conversion or decay of one element,
radium, through an intermediate stage
into another. And not only that, but
if, as seems probable, the presence of
helium indicates the previous presence
of radium, we have the evidence of
enormous quantities of radium in the
sun, for we know helium is there in
vast quantity. Not only that, but, in
asmuch as helium has been discovered
in most hot springs and in various radio
active minerals in the earth, it may be
legitimately argued that no inconsider
able quantity of radium is present in
the earth. Indeed, it now seems
probable that there is enough radium
in the sun to keep up its present con
tinual output of heat, and enough in
the earth to make good its present
loss of heat by radiation into space,
for an almost indefinite period. Other
experiments of a similar kind have
rendered it practically certain that
radium itself is formed by a somewhat
similar transformation of uranium, so
that our ideas as to the permanence
and immutability on this globe of the
chemical elements are destroyed, and
must give place to new conceptions.
It seems not improbable that the final
product of the radium emanation, after
the helium is removed, is, or becomes,
the metal lead!
It must be obvious from all the
foregoing that radium is very slowly,
but none the less surely, destroying
itself. There is a definite loss of
particles, which, in the course of
time, must lead to the destruction of
the radium; and it would seem that
the large new credit on the bank of
time given to biologists in consequence
of its discovery has a definite, if remote,
limit. With the quantities of radium
at present available for experiment, the
1 [Sir William Ramsay has recently given
the name “Niton,” meaning “the shining amount of loss of particles is so small,
and the rate so slow, that it cannot be
one,” to this element.]
�47
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
weighed by the most delicate balance.
Nevertheless, it has been calculated
that a given quantity of radium will
transform half of itself in about fifteen
maintenance of the earth’s tempera
ture. As a reply to this depreciatory
statement, we have the discovery by
Rutherford and others that radium is
Tube containing
Helium gas de
rived from the
mineral Clevelandite.
A
B
Tube of Radium
emanation, a
year old.
C
Tube of Hydro
gen gas for
comparison.
Fig. 11.
Photographs of the “ spark” spectra of A, Helium as extracted from the mineral Clevelandite, of B,
the Radium “ emanation ” after a year’s enclosure in the tube used, and of C, of hydrogen gas : copied
from the paper by Mr. F. Giesel in the Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, Vol. XXXIX.,
part 10.
The three photos are accurately super-imposed so as to show the coincident lines.
.
The spectrum B of the tube containing radium emanation is the one which we are comparing with
the other two. When the radium emanation was first enclosed there was only a small quantity of
helium developed in it, but after keeping for a year the quantity has greatly increased. After five
minutes’ “sparking” (passage of the electric spark through the tube) the chief lines of. helium become
evident but faint in intensity. The present photograph B was obtained after forty minutes’ sparking,
and one result of that longer “sparking ” has been that a minute quantity of water vapour in the tube
has been broken up—so as to yield the hydrogen spectrum, which is accordingly seen accompanying the
now strong and. brightly developed helium spectrum.
The lines of the spectrum B which correspond with those of hydrogen are at once recognised by the
juxtaposition (below) of the pure Hydrogen spectrum from another tube, C : the lines in B belonging to
and indicating helium are also recognised by comparison with the pure helium spectrum of the tube A
juxtaposed above. A very few of the lines in B must be due to other minimal impurities, as they are
not present either in A or C.
Thirteen lines of the helium spectrum are thus photographed and recognised in the radium
emanation.
The following lines are present in the photographic but invisible spectrum of radium (not given in
Fig. 10), viz., at 381’47 /x/x (the strongest line in the radium spectrum) and at 364'96 (a strong line).
In the photographic but invisible spectrum of helium there are three very faint lines between wave
length 447'2 and 443'7 (appearing as two only in our photograph); a moderately strong one at 438'8;
others at 414'4, at 412'1, at 402‘6, and 396'5 ; a very strong one is present, at 388'9, and a very faint one at
381'9. All these are seen in the photograph A and also in B. Special treatment and spectroscopes
reveal four other very faint lines in the helium spectrum—the one furthest in the invisible direction
(that is, of highest refrangibility and lowest wave-length) being placed at 318'6 (Soddy).
hundred years, and unless it were
being produced in some way all the
radium now in existence would dis
appear much too soon to make it an
important geological factor in the
continually being formed afresh, and
from that particular element in con
nection with which it was discovered
—namely, uranium. Hypotheses and
experiments as to the details of this
�48
THE ADVANCE OE SCIENCE
process are at this moment in full
swing, and in this connection results
of a momentous kind are thought by
some physicists to be not improbable
in the immediate future.
The delicate electric test for radio
activity has been largely applied in the
last few years to all sorts and condi
tions of matter. As a result, it appears
that the radium emanation is always
present in our atmosphere ; that the
air in caves is especially rich in it, as
are underground waters and the soil.
Tin-foil, glass, silver, zinc, lead, copper,
platinum, and aluminium are all of
them slightly radio-active. The ques
tion has been raised whether this
widespread radio-activity is due to the
wide dissemination of infinitesimal
quantities of strong radio-active ele
ments, or whether it is the natural
intrinsic property of all matter to
emit Becquerel rays. This is the
immediate subject of research.
Over and above the more simply
appreciable facts which I have thus
narrated there comes the necessary
and difficult inquiry: What does it all
mean ? What are the Becquerel rays
of radio-activity? What must we
conceive to be the structure and
mechanism of the atoms of radium
and allied elements, which can not
only pour forth ceaseless streams of
intrinsic energy from their own
isolated substance, but are perpetu
ally, though in infinitesimal propor
tions, changing their elemental nature
spontaneously, so as to give rise to
other atoms which we recognise as
other elements ?
I cannot venture as an expositor
into this field. It belongs to that
wonderful group of men the modern |
physicists, who with an almost weird
power of visual imagination combine
the great instrument of exact state
ment and mental manipulation called
mathematics, and possess an ingenuity
and delicacy in appropriate experiment
which must fill all who even partially
follow their triumphant handling of
Nature with reverence and admiration.
Such men now or recently among us
are Kelvin, Clerk Maxwell, Crookes,
Rayleigh, and J. J. Thomson.
Becquerel showed early in his study
of the rays emitted by radium that
some of them could be bent out of
their straight path by making them
pass between the poles of a powerful
electro-magnet. In this way have
finally been distinguished three classes
of rays given off by radium: (1) the
alpha rays, which are only slightly
bent, and have little penetrative
power; (2) the beta rays, easily bent
in a direction opposite to that in
which the alpha rays bend, and of
considerable penetrative power; (3) the
gamma rays, which are absolutely un
bendable by the strongest magnetic
force, and have an extraordinary pene
trative power, producing a photographic
effect through a foot thickness of solid
iron.
The alpha rays are shown to be
streams of tiny bodies positively elec
trified, such as are given off by gas
flames and red-hot metals. The par
ticles have about twice the mass of a
hydrogen atom, and they fly off with
a velocity of 20,000 miles a second
—that is, 40,000 times greater than
that of a rifle-bullet. The heat pro
duced by radium is ascribed to the
impact of these particles of the alpha
rays.
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
The beta rays are streams of cor
puscles similar to those given off by
the cathode in a vacuum tube. They
are charged with negative electricity,
and travel at the velocity of 100,000
miles a second. They are far more
minute than the alpha particles. Their
mass is equal to the one-thousandth
of a hydrogen atom. They produce
the major part of the photographic
and phosphorescent effects of the
radium rays.
The gamma rays are apparently the
same, or nearly the same, thing as the
X-rays of Rontgen. They are probably
not particles at all, but pulses or waves
in the ether set up during the ejection
of the corpuscles which constitute the
beta rays. They produce the same
effects in a much smaller degree as do
the beta rays, but are more pene
trating.
The kind of conceptions to which
these and like discoveries have led the
modern physicist in regard to the
character of that supposed unbreakable
body the chemical atom—the simple
and unaffected friend of our youth—
are truly astounding. Nevertheless,
they are not destructive of our previous
conceptions, but rather elaborations
and developments of the simpler views,
introducing the notion of structure and
mechanism, agitated and whirling with
tremendous force, into what we for
merly conceived of as homogeneous or
simply built-up particles, the earlier
conception being not so much a posi
tive assertion of simplicity as a non
committal expectant formula awaiting
the progress of knowledge and the reve
lations which are now in our hands.
As I have already stated, the
attempt to show in detail how the
49
marvellous properties of radium and
radio-activity in general are thus
capable of a pictorial or structural
representation is beyond the limits of
the present essay ; but the fact that
such speculations furnish a scheme
into which the observed phenomena
can be fitted is what we may take on
the authority of the physicists and
chemists of our day.
Intimately connected with all the
work which has been done in the past
twenty-five years in the nature and
possible transformations of atoms is
the great series of investigations and
speculations on astral chemistry and
the development of the chemical
elements which we owe to the un
remitting labour during this period of
Sir Norman Lockyer.
Wireless Telegraphy.—Of great im
portance has been the whole progress
in the theory and practical handling
of electrical phenomena of late years.
The discovery of the Hertzian waves
and their application to wireless tele
graphy is a feature of this period,
though I may remind some of those
who have been impressed by these
discoveries that the mere fact of
electrical action at a distance is that
which hundreds of years ago gave to
electricity its name. The power which
we have gained of making an instru
ment oscillate in accordance with
a predetermined code of signalling,
although detached and a thousand
miles distant, does not really lend any
new support1 to the notion that the
1 It seems necessary to emphasise that I
here say merely that no “ new support ” is
given to the notion of so-called telepathy, a
support some persons have wrongly claimed.
I do not say that the notion is rendered less
likely to prove true than it was before. At
�50
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
old-time beliefs of thought-transference physical agents such as light and
and second sight are more than illu electricity for evidence as to the
sions based on incomplete observation arrangement of atoms in the molecules
and imperfect reasoning. For the im of the most diverse chemical com
portant factors in such human inter pounds. The study of “ valency ” and
course—namely, a signalling-instru its outcome, stereo-chemistry, have
ment and a code of signals—have not been the special lines in which ch emi sbeen discovered as yet in the structure try has advanced. As a matter of
of the human body, and have to be course hundreds, if not thousands, of
consciously devised and manufactured new chemical bodies have been pro
by man in the only examples of thought duced in the laboratory of greater or
transference over long distances at less theoretical interest. The discovery
present discovered or laid bare to of the greatest practical and industrial
experiment and observation.
importance in this connection is the
High and Low Temperatures.—The production of indigo by synthetical
past quarter of a century has witnessed processes, first by laboratory and then
a great development and application by factory methods, so as to compete
of the methods of producing both very successfully with the natural product.
low and very high temperatures. Sir Van Baeyer and Heumann are the
James Dewar, by improved apparatus, names associated with this remarkable
has produced liquid hydrogen and a achievement, which has necessarily
fall of temperature probably reaching dislocated a large industry which
to the absolute zero. A number of derived its raw material from British
applications of extremely low tem India.
Astronomy.—A biologist may well
peratures to research in various direc
tions has been rendered possible by refuse to offer any remarks on his
the facility with which they may now own authority in regard to this
be produced. Similarly high tempera earliest and grandest of all the
tures have been employed in continua sciences. I will, therefore, at once
tion of the earlier work of Deville and say that my friend the Savilian
others by Moissan, the distinguished Professor of Astronomy in Oxford
has turned my thoughts in the right
French chemist.
Progress in Chemistry.—In chemis direction in regard to this subject.
try generally the theoretical tendency There is no doubt that there has
guiding a great deal of work has been been an immense “revival” in astro
the completion and verification of the nomy since 1881; it has developed
“periodic law” of Mendeldeff; and, in every direction. The invention of
on the other hand, the search by the “ dry plate,” which has made it
possible to apply photography freely
the same time I have no hesitation in saying in all astronomical work, is the chief
that the “ stories ” related and regarded by cause of its great expansion. Photo
some persons as evidence of the existence of
telepathy are not to be accepted as free from graphy was applied to astronomical
the influence of illusion and erroneous obser work before 1881, but only with diffi
vation, even in those cases where the good
culty, and haltingly. It was the
faith of the narrator is admitted.
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
51
OS
T—1
6
Pm
This figure should be examined with a magnifying glass. It is a direct reproduction of a photograph
of a detached nebula and surrounding stars in Cygnus by Dr. Max Wolf of Heidelberg (reproduced bv
permission from the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. TjXIV, Plate 18, p. 839 q.v.).
rhe exposure was four hours on July 10,1901, with a camera the lenses of which have a diameter of
sixteen inches. The picture is enlarged so that the apparent diameter of the sun or moon would be
about is inch on the same scale (one minute, or sixtieth of a degree, equals one milimetre).
[ Continued on next page.
�52
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
dry-plate (see Fig. 12) which made long
exposures possible, and thus enabled
astronomers to obtain regular records
of faintly luminous objects such as
nebulae and star-spectra. Roughly
speaking, the number of stars visible
to the naked eye may be stated as
eight thousand; this is raised by the
use of our best telescopes to some
hundred million. But the number
which can be photographed is inde
finite, and depends on length of
exposure; some thousands of millions
can certainly be so recorded.
The serious practical proposal to
“ chart the sky ” by means of photo
graphy certainly dates from this side
of 1881. The Paris Conference of
1887, which made an international
scheme for sharing the sky among
eighteen observatories (still busy with
the work, and producing excellent
results), originated with photographs
of the comet of 1882, taken at the
Cape Observatory.
Professor Pickering, of Harvard, did
not join this co-operative scheme, but
has gradually devised methods of
charting the sky very rapidly, so
that he has at Harvard records of
the whole sky many times over; and
when new objects are discovered he.
can trace their history backwards for
more than a dozen years by reference
to his plates. This is a wonderful
new method, a mode of keeping record
of present movements and changes
which promises much for the future
of astronomy. By the photographic
method hundreds of new variable stars
and other interesting objects have
been discovered. New planets have
been detected by the hundred. Up
to 1881 two hundred and twenty were
known. In 1881 only one was found
—namely, Stephania, being No. 220,
discovered on May 19. Now a score
at least are discovered every year.
Over five hundred are now known.
One of these—-Eros (No. 433)—-is
particularly interesting, since it is
nearer to the sun than is Mars, and
gives a splendid opportunity for fixing
with increased accuracy the sun’s
distance from the earth. Two new
satellites to Saturn and two to Jupiter
have been discovered by photography
(besides one to Jupiter in 1892 by the
visual telescope of the Lick Observa
tory). One of the new satellites of
Saturn goes round that planet the
wrong way, thus calling for a funda
mental revision of our ideas of the
origin of the solar system.
The introduction of photography
has made an immense difference in
The “apparent diameter” of the sun or moon is about one in 115: that is to say, that a covering disc
of any size you like can be made exactly to coincide with and cover” the disc of the sun or moon
provided that you place it at a distance from the eye equal to 115 times its own diameter--thus a disc oi
an inch in diameter (say a halfpenny) will just “ cover ” the sun or moon if placed at a distance from tne
eye of a little less than ten feet, a threepenny piece will cover it at about six feet, and a disc of some
what less than half that size when held at arm’s length.
_ . .
The nebula (on the horizontal A A) is seen surrounded by a dark space—at the end of a lon& dark lane
or “ rift ” which reminds us of the track left by a snowball rolled along in the snow. Has the nebula in
some mysterious way swept up the stars in its journey through space? We cannot at present eitner
affirm or deny such interpretations.
.
,
,
o
One or two of the brightest of the surrounding stars might just be seen by an acute eye unaided oy a
telescope—but no more. The best existing telescopes would show only the large nebular body on tne
line A A, and the larger white spots; the finest dust-like particles are stars of which the existence is omy
demonstrated by prolonged photographic exposures such as this, with a lens which focuses its, image on
to the dry plate. The old “ wet-plate” would not remain wet sufficiently long to take the picture.
It should be borne in mind in looking at this picture that each of the minutest white spots is pro
bably of at least the same size as our 9VS sun; further, that each is probably surrounded by a planetary
system similar to our OW£P
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
spectroscopic work. The spectra of
the stars have been readily mapped
out and classified, and now the
motions in the line of sight of faint
stars
can
be
determined.
This
“motion in the line of sight,” which
was discernible but scarcely measur
able with accuracy before, now pro
vides one of the most refined methods
in astronomy for ascertaining the
dimensions and motions of the uni
verse. It gives us velocities in miles
per second instead of in an angular
unit to be interpreted by a very
imperfect knowledge of the star’s
distance. The method, initiated prac
tically by Huggins thirteen years
before, was in 1881 regarded by many
astronomers as a curiosity. Visual
observations were begun at Green
wich in 1875, but were found to be
affected by instrumental errors. The
introduction of dry plates, and their
application by Vogel in 1887, was the
beginning of general use of the method,
and line-of-sight work is now a vast
department of astronomical industry.
Among other by-products of the method
are the “ spectroscopic doubles,” stars
which we know to be double, and
of which we can determine the period of
revolution, though we cannot separate
them visually by the greatest telescope.
Work on the sun has been entirely
revolutionised by the use of photo
graphy. The last decade has seen the
invention of the spectro-heliograph—
which simply means that astronomers
can now study in detail portions of
the sun of which they could previously
only get a bare indication.
More of the same story could be
related, but enough has been said to
show how full of life and progress is
53
this most ancient and imposing of all
sciences.
A minor, though very important,
influence in the progress of astronomy
has been the provision, by the expendi
ture of great wealth in America, of
great telescopes and equipments.
In 1877 Sir George Darwin started
a line of mathematical research which
has been very fruitful and is of great
future promise for astronomy. As
recently as April, 1906, at the Royal
Astronomical Society, two important
papers were read—one by Mr. Cowell
and the other by Mr. Stratton—which
have their roots in Sir George Darwin’s
work. The former was led to suggest
that the day is lengthening ten times
as rapidly as had been supposed, and
the latter showed that in all probability
the planets had all turned upside down
since their birth.
And yet M. Brunetiere and his
friends wish us to believe that science
is bankrupt and has no new things in
store for humanity.
Geology.—In the field of geological
research the main feature in the past
twenty-five years has been the increas
ing acceptance of the evolutionary as
contrasted with the uniformitarian
view of geological phenomena. The
great work of Suess, Das Antlitz der
Erde, is undoubtedly the most import
ant contribution to physical geology
within the period. The first volume
appeared in 1885, and the impetus
which it has given to the science may
be judged of by the epithet applied to
the views for which Suess is respon
sible—“the New Geology.”
Suess
attempts to trace the orderly sequence
of the principal changes in the earth’s
crust since it first began to form. He
�Fig. 16.
Fig 13.—The Freshwater Jelly-fish of Regent’s Park (Lvmnocodium Sowerbu), magnified five times
linear It was discovered in the tropical lily tank of the Botanical Gardens in June, 1880, and swarmed
in great numbers year after year—then suddenly disappeared. It has since been found m similar tang
in Sheffield, Lyons, and Munich. Only male specimens were discovered, and the native home or tne
wonderful visitor is still unknown.
, ,
. .. . - ,
Big. 14.—The minute polyp attached to the rootlets of water plants—from which the jeiiy-nsn
Limnocodi/um was found to be “ budded off.”
.
,.
rn
Fig. 15.—One of the peculiar sense-organs from the edge of the swimming disc of Limnocodium. O,
cavity of capsule ; EC, ectoderm; EN, endoderm. Sense organs of identical structure are found m the
Freshwater Jelly-fish of Lake Tanganyika and in no other jelly-fish.
five
Fig. 16.—The Freshwater Jelly-fish of Lake Tanganyika (Lmnocmda Tangawyicae), magnified fa
times linear. Since its discovery in Tanganyika it has been found also in the Lake Victoria Nyanza and
pools in the Upper Niger basin.
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Strongly opposes the old theory of
elevation, and accounts for the move
ments as due to differential collapse
of the crust, accompanied by folding
due to tangential stress. Among
special results gained by geologists in
the period we survey may be cited
new views as to the origin of the
crystalline schists, favouring a return
to something like the hypogene origin
advocated by Lyell; the facts as to
deep-sea deposits, now in course of
formation, embodied in the “ Challen
ger ” reports on that subject; the
increasing discrimination and tracking
of those minor divisions of strata
called “ zones the assignment of the
Olenellus fauna of Cambrian age to a
position earlier than that of the Paradoxides fauna ; the discovery of Eadiolaria in palaeozoic rocks by special
methods of examination, and the
recognition of Graptolites as indices
of geological horizons in lower palaeo
zoic beds. Glacially eroded rocks in
boulder-clays of permo-carboniferous
age have been recognised in many
parts of the world (e.g., Australia and
South Africa), and thus the view put
forward by W. T. Blanford as to the
occurrence of the same phenomena in
conglomerates of this age in India is
confirmed. Eozoon is finally aban
doned as owing its structure to an
organism. The oldest fossiliferous
beds known to us are still far from
the beginning of life. They contain a
highly developed and varied animal
fauna—and something like the whole
of the older moiety of rocks of aqueous
origin have failed as yet to present us
with any remains of the animals or
plants which must have inhabited the
seas which deposited them. The boring
55
of a coral reef initiated by Professor
Sollas at the Nottingham meeting of
the British Association in 1893 has
been successfully carried out, and a
depth of l,114i feet reached. Inform
ation of great value to geologists was
thus obtained.
Animal and Vegetable Morphography.
—Were I to attempt to give an account
of the new kinds of animals and plants
discovered since 1881, I should have
to offer a bare catalogue, for space
would not allow me to explain the
interest attaching to each. Explorers
have been busy in all parts of the
world — in Central Africa, in the
Antarctic, in remote parts of China,
in Patagonia and Australia, and on
the floor of the ocean, as well as in
caverns, on mountain tops, and in
great lakes and rivers. We have
learnt much that is new as to distri
bution ; countless new forms have
been discovered, and careful anatomical
and microscopical study conducted on
specimens sent home to our labora
tories. I cannot refrain from calling
to mind the discovery of the eggs of
the Australian duck-mole and spiny
ant-eater; the fresh-water jelly-fish
(Eigs. 13, 14, and 15) of Eegent’s
Park, the African lakes (Eig. 16), and
the Delaware Eiver; the marsupial
mole of Central Australia; the okapi
(Figs. 17, 18, and 19); the breeding
and transformations of the common
eel (Fig. 20); the young and adult of
the mud-fishes of Australia, Africa,
and South America ; the fishes of the
Nile and Congo ; the gill-bearing earth
worms and mud-worms; the various
forms of the caterpillar-like Peripatus ;
strange deep-sea fishes, polyps, and
sponges.
D
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
56
Fig. 17.
1’lG. 18.
Fig. 19.
Fig. 17. The giraffe-like animal called the Okapi, discovered by Sir Harry Johnston in the Congo
forest. Photograph of the skin of a female sent home by him in 1901, and now mounted and exhibited in
the Natural History Museum.
m
Fig. 18.—Two “ bandoliers " cut by the natives from the striped part of the skin (the haunches) and at
first supposed t(> be bits of the hide of a new kind of zebra. These were sent home by Sir Hk?ry Johnston
in iyuu.
.. FIG-19--Photograph of the skull of a male Okapi-showing the paired boney horn-cores-similar to
those of the giraffe, but connected with the frontal bones and not with the parietals as the horn-cores of
giraffes are.
°
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
57
The main result of a good deal of by very simple, remote, and not by
such investigation is measured by our proximate, ancestors with one another
increased knowledge of the pedigree of and with the ancestors of vertebrates.
The origin of the limbs of verte
organisms, in fact what used to be
called “ classification.” The anatomi brates is now generally agreed to be
cal study by the Australian professors correctly indicated in the ThatcherHill and Wilson of the
teeth and the foetus of the
Australian group of pouched
mammals—the marsupials
—has entirely upset pre
vious notions, to the effect
that these are a primitive
group, and has shown that
their possession of only one
replacing tooth is a reten
tion of one out of many
such teeth (the germs of
which are present), as in
placental mammals; and
further that many of these
marsupials have the nour
ishing outgrowth of the
foetus called the placenta
fairly well developed, so
that they must be regarded
as a degenerate side-branch
Fig. 20.
of the placental mammals,
Drawings
of the young of the
and not as primitive fore common Eelby Professor Grassi, of Rome, the natural size. The
and its metamorphosis. All of
transparent glass-like creature—
runners of that dominant uppermost figure represents a find” to marine naturalists, ana
which was known as a rare “
received the name Leptocephalus. Really it lives in vast
series.
numbers in great depths of the sea—five hundred fathoms ana
Speculations as to the more. It is hatched here from the eggs of the common eel
which descends from the ponds, lakes, and rivers of Europe in
ancestral connection of the order to breed in these great depths. The gradual change of the
Leptocephalus into a young eel or “ elver ” is shown, and was dis
great group of vertebrates covered by Grassi. The young eels leave the great depth of the
ocean and ascend the rivers in immense shoals of many hundred
with other great groups thousand individuals, and wriggle their way up banks and rocks
into the small streams and pools of the continent.
. ,
have been varied and in
The above figures were published by Professor Grassi in
November, 1896, in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science,
genious ; but most natura edited by E. Ray Lankester, and sold by Churchill and Sons.
lists are now inclined to
the view that it is a mistake to Mivart-Balfour theory, to the effect
assume any such connection in the that they are derived from a pair of
case of vertebrates of a more definite continuous lateral fins, in fish-like
character than we admit in the case of ancestors, similar in every way to the
starfishes, shell-fish, and insects. All continuous median dorsal fin of fishes.
The discovery of the formation of
these groups are ultimately connected
�58
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
true spermatozoa by simple unicellular
When we come to the results of the
animals of the group Protozoa is a digging out and study of extinct plants
startling thing, for it had always been and animals, the most remarkable
supposed that these peculiar repro results of all in regard to the affini
ductive elements were only formed by ties and pedigree of organisms have
multicellular organisms (Figs. 21, 22, been obtained. Among plants the
and 23). They have been discovered transition between cryptogams and
in some of the gregarina-like animal phanerogams has been practically
cules, the Coccidia, and also in the bridged over by the discovery that
blood-parasites.
certain fern-like plants of the Coal
Among plants one of the most im Measures — the Cycadofilices — sup
portant discoveries relates to these posed to be true ferns, are really seed
same reproductive elements, the sper bearing plants, and not ferns at all,
matozoa, which by botanists are called but phanerogams of a primitive type,
antherozoids. A great difference be allied to the cycads and gymnosperms.
tween the whole higher series of plants, They have been re-christened Pterithe flowering plants or phanerogams, dosperms by Scott, who, together with
and the cryptogams or lower plants, F. Oliver and Seward, has been the
including ferns, mosses, and algae, was chief discoverer in this most interesting
held to be that the latter produce field.
vibratile spermatozoa like those of
By their fossil remains whole series
animals, which swim in liquid and of new genera of extinct mammals
fertilise the motionless egg-cell of the have been traced through the tertiary
plant. Two Japanese botanists (and strata of North America, and their
the origin of this discovery from Japan, genetic connections established; and
from the University of Tokio, in itself from yet older strata of the same pro
marks an era in the history of science), lific source we have almost complete
Hirase and Ikeno, astonished the knowledge of several genera of huge
botanical world fifteen years ago by extinct Dinosauria of great variety of
showing that motile antherozoids or form and habit (Fig. 25).
spermatozoa are produced by two
The discoveries by Seeley at the
gymnosperms, the ging-ko tree (or Cape, and by Amalitzky in North
Salisburya) and the cycads (Fig. 24). Russia of identical genera of Triassic
The pollen-tube, which is the fertilis reptiles, which in many respects re
ing agent in all other phanerogams, semble the Mammalia and constitute
develops, in these cone-bearing trees, the group Theromorpha, is also a
beautiful motile spermatozoa, which prominent feature in the palseontology
swim in a cup of liquid provided for of the past twenty-five years (Fig. 26).
them in connection with the ovules. Nor must we forget the extraordinary
Thus a great distinction between Devonian and Silurian fishes discovered
phanerogams and cryptogams was and described by Professor Traquair
broken down, and the actual nature (Figs. 27 and 28). The most im
of the pollen-tube as a potential parent portant discovery of the kind of late
of spermatozoids demonstrated.
| years has been that of the Upper
�Fig.
21.
Fig.
23.
Fig. 24.
the normal male Sd;T»nd I fhX stages ^“the^^
Pt°Ulp Or °ctopus‘
is
UdFmg224-Pr^ 6t-b0Wfa female parasite with dermatozoa SroachingT
°a °U ltS SUrfaCe by
from the Lbtat^s
°n the SUrfaCe °f the unicellular parasite Coceidium oviforme,
in
°f the ™ice11^ Parasite EcMnospora found
Fig. 24. Spermatozoa (antlierozoicls) of Cvccls TcvolutcL qaah frnm fha
-p
.PermataPo« I.sph,ri„i.c™g.spl„l tocd
�60
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Eocene and Miocene mammals of the
Egyptian Eayum, excavated by the
Egyptian Geological Survey and by
Dr. Andrews, of the Natural History
Museum, who has described and figured
which was abundant in Miocene and
Pliocene times in Europe and Asia,
and in still later times in America,
and survives at the present day in its
representatives the African and Indian
the remains. They include a huge
four-horned animal, as big as a rhino
ceros, but quite peculiar in its char
acters—the Arisinoitherium—and the
ancestors of the elephants, a group
elephant. One of the European ex
tinct elephants—the Tetrabelodon—
had, we have long known, an im
mensely long lower jaw with large
chisel-shaped terminal teeth. It had
�THE ADVANCE OE SCIENCE
61
Fig. 26.
Fig. 27.
Fig. 26.—Photograph of the skeleton of a large carnivorous Reptile from Triassic strata in North
Russia, discovered by Prof. Amalitzky and named by him Inostransevia. The head alone is two feet in
length.
Fig, 27.—Photographs of completed models of the Devonian fish Drepanaspis, from Devonian slates
of North Germany, worked out by Professor Traquair. The models are in the Natural History Museum,
London.
Fig. 28.—The oldest fossil fish known—discovered in the Upper Silurian strata of Scotland, and
named BirJcenia by Professor Traquair.
�62
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
been suggested by me that the modern mastodon, in which there are a long,
elephant’s trunk must have been de powerful jaw, an elongated faceBand
rived from the soft upper jaw and an increased number of molar teeth
nasal area, which rested on this elon (see Figs. 29 and 30) ; the second,
gated lower jaw, by the shortening (in Meritlzerium (Fig. 31), an animal with
the course of natural selection and a rhinoceros-like head, comparatively
modification by descent) of this long minute tusks, and a well-developed
lower jaw, to the present small dimen- complement of incisor, canine, and
Fig.
29.
Photograph of a complete model of the skull and lower jaw of the ancestral elephant, PaUzomastodon, discovered by Dr. Andrews in the Upper Eocene of the Fayum Desert, Egypt, and modelled
and restored under his direction in the Natural History Museum, London. The. comparatively short
trunk or snout rested on the broad front teeth of the long lower jaw. The face is elongated, and the
cheek-teeth are numerous.
sions of the elephant’s lower jaw, and
the consequent down-dropping of the
unshortened upper jaw and lips, which
thus became the proboscis.
Dr.
Andrews has described from Egypt
and placed in the Museum in London
specimens of the two new genera of
elephant-like animals — one Palao-
molar teeth, like a typical ungulate
mammal.
Undoubtedly we have in
these two forms the indications of
the steps by which the elephants b*fe
been evolved from ordinary-looking pig
like creatures of moderate size, devoid
of trunk or tusks. Other remains
belonging to this great mid-African
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
63
Eocene fauna indicate that not and many other new mammals and
only the elephants, but the Sirenia reptiles.
Another great area of exploration
(the dugong and manatee), took
Fig. 30.
Photograph of the lower face of the skull of a specimen of Palaomastoclon brought fr°m Egn>t in
April, 1906, by Dr. Andrews, and now in the Natural History Museum, London. The six charactenst 0
cheek-teeth on each side, and the pair of sabre-like tusks in front, are well seen.
their origin in this area. Amongst
them are also gigantic forms of
Hyrax, like the little Syrian coney
and source of new things has been the
southern part of Argentina and Pata
gonia, where Ameghino, Moreno, and
�64
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Scott of Princeton have brought to
light a wonderful series of extinct ant
eaters, armadilloes, huge sloths, and
strange ungulates, reaching back into
early Tertiary times. But most re
Cruz strata, considered to be of early
Tertiary date, of remains of a huge
horned tortoise which is generically
identical with one found fossil in the
Australian area of later date, and
known as Miolania. In
the same wonderful area
we have the discovery in
a cave of the fresh bones,
hairy skin, and dung of
animals supposed to be
extinct—viz., the giant
sloth, Mylodon, and the
peculiar horse, Onohi/ppidium.
These remains
seem to belong to survivors from the last sub
mergence of this strangely
mobile land-surface, and
it is not improbable that
some individuals of this
“extinct” fauna are still
living in Patagonia. The
region is still unexplored,
and those who set out to
examine it have, by some
strange fatality, hitherto
failed to carry out the
professed purpose of their
expeditions.
I cannot quit this im
mense field of gathered
Fig. 31.
fact and growing generali
Drawing of the skull and lower jaw of the Meritherium, dissation without alluding to
cov eied by Dr. Andrews in the Upper Eocene of the Fayuni Desert,
lhe shape of the skull and propoi’tions of face and jaw are like
those of an ordinary hoofed mammal such as the pig; but the the study of animal em
cheek-teeth are similar to those of the Mastodon, and whilst the
bryology and the germfull complement of teeth is present in the front of the upper jaw
we can distinguish the big tusk-like incisor which alone survives on, layer theory, which has to
each side in Palazomastodon, Mastodon, and the elephants, as the
great pan* of tusks,
some extent been superseded by the study of em
markable has been the discovery in bryonic cell-lineage, so well pursued
this area of remains which indicate a by some American microscopists. The
former connection with the Australian great generalisation of the study of the
land surface. This connection is sug germ-layers and their formation seems
gested by the discovery in the Santa to be now firmly established—namely,
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
65
that the earliest multicellular animals morphology, I must apologise for my
were possessed of one structural cavity, inability to give space to a considera
the enteron, surrounded by a double tion of the growing and important
layer of cells, the ectoderm and endo science of anthropology, which ranges
derm. These Enteroccela or Ccelentera from the history of modern races and
gave rise to forms having a second of human institutions and language to
great body-cavity, the coelom, which the earliest prehistoric bones and im
originated not as a split between the plements. Let me therefore- note here
two layers, as was supposed twenty- the discovery of the cranial dome of
five years ago by Haeckel and Gegen- Pithecanthropus in a river gravel in
baur and their pupils, but by a pouch Java—undoubtedly the most ape-like
ing of the enteron to form one or more of human remains, and of great age
cavities in which the reproductive cells (see Bigs. 1 and 2); and, further, the
should develop—pouchings which be Eoliths of Prestwich (see Figs. 3 and
came nipped off from the cavity of 4), in the human authorship of which
their origin, and formed thus the inde I am inclined to believe, though I
pendent coelom. The animals so pro should be sorry to say the same of all
vided are the Ccelomoccela Us opposed the broken flints to which the name
to the Enterocoela), and comprise all “ Eolith ” has been applied. The sys
animals above the polyps, jelly-fish, tematic investigation and record of
corals, and sea-anemones. It has been savage races have taken on a new and
established in these twenty-five years scientific character. Such work as
that the coelom is a definite structural Baldwin Spencer’s and Haddon’s in
unit of the higher groups, and that Australasia furnishes examples of what
outgrowths from it to the exterior is being done in this way.
Physiology of Plants and Animals.
(coelomoducts) form the genital pas
—Since I have not space to do more
sages, and may become renal excretory
organs also. The vascular system has than pick out the most important
not, as it was formerly supposed to advances in each subject for brief
have, any derivative connection with mention, I must signalise, in regard
the coelom, but is independent of it, to the physiology of plants, the better
in origin and development, as also are understanding of the function of leaf
the primitive and superficial renal green or chlorophyll due to Pringsheim
tubes known as nephridia. These and to the Russian Timiriaseff, the
general statements seem to me to new facts as to the activity of stomata
cover the most important advance in in transpiration discovered by Horace
the general morphology of animals Brown, and the fixation of free nitrogen
which we owe to embryological re by living organisms in the soil and by
search in the past quarter of a cen organisms {Bacillus radicola) parasitic
in the rootlets of leguminous plants
tury.1
Before leaving the subject of animal (see Fig. 32), which thus benefit by a
supply of nitrogenous compounds which
1 See the Introduction to Part II. of A
Treatise on Zoology. Edited by E. Ray they can assimilate.
Great progress in the knowledge of
Lankester (London : A. & G. Black).
�66
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
the chemistry of the living cells or
protoplasm of both plants and animals
has been made by the discovery of the
fact that ferments or enzymes are not
only secreted externally by cells, but
exist active and preformed inside cells.
Buchner’s final conquest of the secret
Fig. 32.
Bacillus radicola, the parasite which infests the
roots of leguminous plants and causes the growth
of nodules whilst assisting the plant in the assimila
tion of nitrogen : a nodule of the roots of the com
mon Lupine, natural size; b longitudinal section
through a Lupine root and nodule ; c a single cell
from a Lupine nodule showing the bacteria or
bacilli as black particles in the protoplasm,
magnified 600 diameters; d bacilli from the root
nodule of the Lupine; e triangular forms of the
bacillus from the root nodules of the Vetch ; f oval
forms from the root nodules of the Lupine; def
are magnified 1,500 diameters.
of the yeast-cell by heroic mechanical
methods—the actual grinding to powder
of these already very minute bodies—
first established this, and now succes
sive discoveries of intracellular fer
ments have led to the conclusion that
it is probable that the cell respires by
means of a respiratory “ oxydase,”
builds up new compounds and destroys
existing ones, contracts and accom
plishes its own internal life by fer
ments. Life thus (from the chemical
point of view) becomes a chain of
ferment actions. Another most signi
ficant advance in animal physiology
has been the sequel (as it were) of
Bernard’s discovery of the formation
of glycogen in the liver, a substance
not to be excreted, but to be taken up
by the blood and lymph, and in many
ways more important than the more
obvious formation of bile, which is
thrown out of the gland into the
alimentary canal. It has been dis
covered that many glands, such as the
kidney and pancreas and the ductless
glands, the suprarenals, thyroid, and
others, secrete indispensable products
into the blood and lymph. Hence
myxoedema, exophthalmic goitre, Addi
son’s disease, and other disorders have
been traced to a deficiency or excess of
internal secretions from glands formerly
regarded as interesting but unimportant
vestigial structures. From these glands
have in consequence been extracted
remarkable substances on which their
peculiar activity depends. From the
suprarenals a substance has been
extracted which causes activity of all
those structures which the sympathetic
nerve-system can excite to action ; the
thyroid yields a substance which
influences the growth of the skin,
hair, bones, etc.; the pituitary gland,
an extract which is a specific urinary
stimulant. Quite lately the mam
malian ovary has been shown by
Starling to yield a secretion which
influences the'state of nutrition of the
uterus and mammae. A great deal
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
more might be said here on topics
such as these — topics of almost
infinite importance; but the fact is
that the mere enumeration of the
most important lines of progress in
any one science would occupy many
pages.
Nerve - physiology has made im
mensely important advances. There
is now good evidence that all excita
tion of one group of nerve-centres is
accompanied by the concurrent inhibi
tion of a whole series of groups of
other centres, whose activity might
interfere with that of the group excited
to action. In a simple reflex flexure
of the knee the motor-neurones to the
flexor muscles are excited; but con
currently the motor-neurones to the
extensor muscles are thrown into a
state of inhibition, and so equally with
all the varied excitations of the nervous
system controlling the movements and
activities of the entire body.
The discovery of the continuity of
the protoplasm through the walls of
the vegetable cells by means of con
necting canals and threads (see Pig. 33)
is one of the most startling facts dis
covered in connection with plant
structure, since it was held twenty
years ago that a fundamental distinc
tion between animal and vegetable
structure consisted in the boxing-up
or encasement of each vegetable cell
unit in a case of cellulose, whereas
animal cells were not so imprisoned,
but freely communicated with one
another. It perhaps is on this
account the less surprising that lately
something like sense-organs have been
discovered on the roots, stems, and
leaves of plants, which, like the
otocysts of some animals, appear to
67
be really “ statocytes,” and to exert a
varying pressure according to the
relations of these parts of the plant
to gravity. There is apparently some
thing resembling a perception of the
incidence of gravity in plants which
reacts on irritable tissues, and is the
explanation of the phenomena of
geotropism. These results have grown
out of the observations of Charles
Darwin, followed by those of F. Dar
win, Haberlandt, and Nemec.
A few words must be said here as
to the progress of our knowledge of
The continuity of the protoplasm of neighbour
ing vegetable cells, by means of threads 'which
perforate the cell-walls. Drawing (after Gardiner)
of cells from the pulvinus of Robinia.
cell-substance, and what used to be
called the protoplasm question. We
do not now regard protoplasm as a
chemical expression, but, in accordance
with von Mohl’s original use of the
word, as a structure which holds in its
meshes many and very varied chemical
bodies of great complexity. Within
these twenty-five years the “ centrosome” of the cell - protoplasm has
been discovered (see Fig. 34), and a
great deal has been learnt as to the
structure of the nucleus and its
remarkable stain-taking bands, the
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
68
chromosomes. We now know that
these bands are of definite fixed
number, varying in different species
of plants and animals, and that they
are halved in number in the repro
ductive elements—the spermatozoid
and the ovum—so that on union of
these two to form the fertilised ovum
(the parent cell of all the tissues), the
proper specific number is attained (see
new nucleus —in fact, can do very
little but exhibit irritability. I am
inclined to agree with those who hold
that there is not sufficient evidence
that any organism exists at the
present time which has not both
protoplasm and nucleus; in fact, that
the simplest form of life at present
existing is a highly complicated struc
ture—a nucleated cell. 'That does not
Attraction-sphere enclosing two centrosomes.
Plastids lying in the
cytoplasm.
rpiasmosome or
true nucleolus.
Chromatin
network.
Nucleus
Linin-network.
k
Karyosome or
net-knot.
Vacuole.
Lifeless bodies (meta
plasm) suspended in
the cytoplasmic reticu
lum.
Fig.
34.
Diagrammatic representation of the structures present in a typical cell (after Wilson). Note the two
centrosomes, sometimes single.
Figs. 35 and 36). It has been pretty
clearly made out by cutting up large
living cells—unicellular animals—that
the body of the cell alone, without the
nucleus, can do very little but move
and maintain for a time its chemical
status. But it is the nucleus which
directs and determines all definite
growth, movement, secretion, and
reproduction. The simple protoplasm,
deprived of its nucleus, cannot form a
imply that simpler forms of living
matter have not preceded those which
we know. We must assume that
something more simple and homo
geneous than the cell, with its
differentiated cell-body or protoplasm,
and its cell kernel or nucleus, has at
one time existed. But the various
supposed instances of the survival to
the present day of such simple living
things—described by Haeckel and
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
69
others—have one by one yielded to been seriously revived within these
improved methods of microscopic twenty-five years. Our greater know
examination and proved to be dif- ledge of minute forms of life, and the
c.
Fig.
35.—The
Number oe the Chromosomes.
a Cell of the asexual generation of the cryptogam Pellia epiphylla: the nucleus is about to divide
a polar ray-formation is present at each end of the spindle-shaped nucleus, the chromosomes have
divided into two horizontal groups each of sixteen pieces: sixteen is the number of the chromosomes of
the ordinary tissue cells of Pellia. b Cell of the sexual generation of the same plant (PeZZia) in the
same phase of division, but with the reduced number of chromosomes—namely, eight m each half of
the dividing nucleus. The completed cells of the sexual generation have only eight chromosomes, c,
Somatic or tissue-cell of Salamander showing twenty-four V-shaped chromosomes, each of which is
becoming longitudinally split as a preliminary to division, d Sperm-mother-cell from testis of Sala
mander showing the reduced number of chromosomes of the sexual cells—namely, twelve; each is split
longitudinally. (From original drawings by Professor Farmer and Mr. Moore.)
ferentiated into nuclear and extra- conditions under which they can sur
vive, as well as our improved micro
nuclear substance.
The question of “ spontaneous scopes and methods of experiment and
generation ” cannot be said to have observation, have made an end of the
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
arguments and instances of supposed
abiogenesis. The accounts which have
been published of “ radiobes,” minute
bodies arising in fluids of organic
origin when radium salts have been
allowed to mix in quantities with such
fluids, are wanting in precision and
detail; but the microscopic particles
which appear in the circumstances
described seem to be of a nature
identical with the minute bodies well
known to microscopists and recognised
as crystals modified by a colloid
medium. They have been described
Further stage in the division of the sexual cell
drawn in Fig. 35 cl, showing the twelve chromo
somes of the two nuclei of the sperm-cells resulting
from the division (twelve instead of twenty-four).
by Rainey, Harting, and Ord, on
different occasions, many years ago.
They are not devoid of interest, but
cannot be considered as having any
new bearing on the origin of living
matter.
Psychology.—I have given a special
heading to this subject because its
emergence as a definite line of experi
mental research seems to me one of
the most important features in the
progress of science in the past quarter
of a century. Thirty-five years ago
we were all delighted by Fechner’s
psycho-physical law; and at Leipzig
I, with others of my day, studied it
experimentally in the physiological
laboratory of that great teacher Carl
Ludwig. The physiological methods
of measurement (which are the phy
sical ones) have been more and more
widely, and with guiding intelligence
and ingenuity, applied since those
days to the study of the 'activities of
the complex organs of the nervous
system which are concerned with
“mind,” or psychic phenomena.
Whilst some enthusiasts have been
eagerly collecting ghost-stories and
records of human illusion and fancy
the serious experimental investigation
of the human mind, and its forerunner
the animal mind, has been quietly but
steadily proceeding in truly scientific
channels. The science is still in an
early phase—that of the collection of
accurate observations and measure
ments—awaiting the development of
great guiding hypotheses and theories.
But much has been done ; and it is a
matter of gratification to Oxford men
that through the liberality of the dis
tinguished electrician Mr. Henry
Wilde, F.R.S., a lectureship of Ex
perimental Psychology has been
founded in the University of Oxford,
where the older studies of Mental and
Moral Philosophy, Logic, and Meta
physics have so strong a hold, and
have so well prepared the ground for
the new experimental development.
The German investigators W. Wundt,
G. E. Muller, C. Stumpf, Ebbinghaus,
and Munsterberg have been prominent
in introducing laboratory methods,
and have determined such matters as
the elementary laws of association
and memory, and the perceptions of
musical tones and their relations.
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
71
The work of Goldschneider on the mus- doubtedly furnish the necessary scien
'
cular sense, and that of von Frey on the tific basis of the art of education, and
cutaneous sensations, are further ex psychology will hold the same relation
to that art as physiology does to the
amples of what is being done.
The difficult and extremely im art of medicine and hygiene.
There can be little doubt, moreover,
portant line of investigation first
of the valuable interaction of the study
scientifically treated by Braid under
the name “ Hypnotism” has been of physical psychology and the theories
greatly developed by the French school, of the origin of structural character by
especially by Charcot. The experi natural selection. The relation of the
mental investigation of suggestion, human mind to the mind of animals,
and the pathology of dual conscious and the gradual development of both,
ness and such exceptional conditions form a subject full of rich stores of
of the mind, has been greatly advanced new material, yielding conclusions of
the highest importance, which has not
by French observers.
The older work of Ferrier and Hitzig yet been satisfactorily approached.
I am glad to be able to give wider
on the functions of the parts of the
publicity here to some conclusions
brain has been carried further by Goltz
and Munk in Germany, and by Schafer, which I communicated to the Jubilee
Horsley, and Sherrington in England. volume of the Soci6t& de Biologic
The most important general advance of Paris in 1899. I there discussed
seems to be the recognition that the the significance of the great increase
mind of the human adult is a social in the size of the cerebral hemispheres
product; that it can only be under in recent, as compared with Eocene,
stood in relation with the special en mammals (see Fig. 5), and in Man as
vironment in which it develops, and compared with apes, and came to the
with which it is in perpetual inter conclusion that “ the power of building
action. Professor Baldwin, of Prince up appropriate cerebral mechanism in
ton, has done important work on this response to individual experience,” or
subject. Closely allied is the study what may be called educability, is
of what is called “ the psychology of the quality which characterises the
groups,” the laws of mental action larger cerebrum, and is that which
of the individual as modified by his has led to its selection, survival, and
membership of some form of society. further increase in volume. The bear
French authors have done valuable ing of this conception upon questions
of fundamental importance in what
work here.
These two developments of psy has been called “ genetic psychology ”
chology are destined to provide the is sketched as follows :—
“ The character which we describe
indispensable psychological basis for
Social Science, and for the anthro as ‘educability’ can be transmitted;
pological investigation of mental it is a congenital character. But the
results of education can not be transphenomena.
, mitted. In each generation they have
Hereafter, the well-ascertained laws
of experimental psychology will un to be acquired afresh. With increased
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
educability ’ they are more readily
acquired, and a larger variety of them.
On the other hand, the nerve-mechan
isms of instinct are transmitted, and
owe their inferiority, as compared with
the results of education, to the very
fact that they are not acquired by the
individual in relation to his particular
needs, but have arisen by selection of
congenital variation in a long series of
preceding generations.”
To a large extent, the two series
of brain-mechanisms, the ‘ instinctive ’
and the ‘ individually acquired,’ are in
opposition to one another. Congenital
brain-mechanisms may prevent the
education of the brain and the develop
ment of new mechanisms specially
fitted to the special conditions of life.
To the educable animal the less there
is of specialised mechanism transmitted
by heredity the better. The loss of in
stinct is what permits and necessitates
the education of the receptive brain.”
We are thus led to the view that
it is hardly possible for a theory to be
further from the truth than that ex
pressed by George H. Lewes and
adopted by George Romanes—namely,
that instincts are due to ‘ lapsed ’ in
telligence. The fact is that there is
no community between the mechan
isms of instinct and the mechanisms
of intelligence, and that the latter are
later in the history of the development
of the brain than the former, and can
only develop in proportion as the former
become feeble and defective.”1
Darwinism.—Under the title “ Dar
winism ” it is convenient to designate
the various work of biologists tending
to establish, develop, or modify Mr.
Darwin’s great theory of the origin of
species. In looking back over twentyfive years, it seems to me that we
must say that the conclusions of
Darwin as to the origin of species by
the survival of selected races in the
struggle for existence are more firmly
established than ever — and this be
cause there have been many attempts
to gravely tamper with essential parts
of the fabric as he left it, and even to
substitute conceptions for those which
he endeavoured to establish, at vari
ance with his conclusions. These
attempts must, I think, be considered
as having failed. A great deal of
valuable work has been done in con
sequence ; for honest criticism, based
on observation and experiment, leads
to further investigation, and is the
legitimate and natural mode of in*
crease
of
scientific
knowledge.
Amongst the attempts to seriously
modify Darwin’s doctrine may be cited
that to assign a great and leading im
portance to Lamarck’s theory as to
the transmission by inheritance of
newly “acquired” characters, due
chiefly to American palaeontologists
and to the venerated defender of such
views, who has now closed his long
life of great work, Mr. Herbert Spencer;
that to attribute leading importance to
the action of physiological congruity
and incongruity in selective breeding,
which was put forward by another
able writer and naturalist who has
now passed from among us, Dr.
George Romanes; further, the views
of de Vries as to the discontinuity in
the origin of new species, supported
1 From the Jubilee volume of the Soc. de
by the valuable work of Mr. Bateson
Biol, of Paris, 1899. Reprinted in Nature,
Vol. LXI., 1900, pp. 624, 625.
on discontinuous variation ; and, lastly,
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
73
the attempt to assign a great and convincing and valuable works on
general importance to the facts ascer Darwinism. He is still alive, and not
tained many years ago by the Abb6 merely well, but pursuing his work
Mendel as to the cross-breeding of with vigour and ability. It was chiefly
varieties and the frequent production through his researches on insects in
(in regard to certain characters in South America and the Malay Islands
certain cases) of pure strains rather that Mr. Wallace was led to the Dar
than of breeds combining the charac winian theory; and there is no doubt
ters of both parents. On the other that the study of insects, especially of
hand, we have the splendid series of butterflies, is still one of the most
observations and writings of August prolific fields in which new facts can
Weismann, who has, in the opinion of be gathered in support of Darwin and
the majority of those who study this new views on the subject tested.
subject, rendered the Lamarckian Prominent amongst naturalists in this
theory of the origin and transmission line of research has been and is Edward
of new characters altogether untenable, Poulton, of Oxford, who has handed
and has, besides, furnished a most on to the study of entomology through
instructive, if not finally conclusive, out the world the impetus of the Dar
theory or mechanical scheme of the winian theory. I must here also name
phenomena of Heredity in his book a writer who, though unknown in our
The Germ, - Plasm. Professor Karl laboratories and museums, seems to
Pearson and the late Professor Weldon me to have rendered very valuable
—the latter so early in life and so service in late years to the testing of
recently lost to us—have, with the Darwin’s doctrines and to the bringing
finest courage and enthusiasm in the of a great class of organic pheno
face of an enormous and difficult task, mena within the cognisance of those
determined to bring the facts of varia naturalists who are especially occupied
tion and heredity into the solid form with the problems of Variation and
of statistical statement, and have Heredity. I mean Dr. Archdall Reid,
organised, and largely advanced in, who has with keen logic made use of
this branch of investigation, which the immense accumulation of material
they have termed “ Biometrics.” which is in the hands of medical men,
Many naturalists throughout the and has pointed out the urgent im
world have made it the main object portance of increased use by Dar
of their collecting and breeding of in winian investigators of the facts as to
sects, birds, and plants to test Darwin’s the variation and heredity of that
generalisations and to expand the unique animal Man — unique in his
work of Wallace in the same direc abundance, his reproductive activity,
tion. A delightful fact in this survey and his power of assisting his investi
is that we find Mr. Alfred Russel gator by his own record. There are
Wallace (who fifty years ago con more observations about the variation
ceived the same theory as that more and heredity of man and the condi
fully stated by Darwin) actively work tions attendant upon individual in
ing and publishing some of the most stances than with regard to any other
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
animal. Medical men need only to
grasp clearly the questions at present
under discussion in order to be able
to furnish with ease data absolutely
invaluable in quantity and quality.
Dr. Archdall Reid has in two original
books full of insight and new sugges
tions, The Present Evolution of Man
and Principles of Heredity, shown a
new path for investigators to follow.
There are still some philosophers
and a few naturalists who accept
Lamarck’s theory of organic evolution
by the transmission of what he called
les changements acquis.” I use the
term “ acquired ” without prejudice in
the sense given to that word by
Lamarck himself. It is of primary
importance that those who follow this
controversy should clearly understand
what Lamarck pointed to by this word
u acquired.” Utter confusion and
absurdity have resulted from a mis
understanding on this subject by some
writers who deliberately call newly
appearing congenital characters “ ac
quired ” or “ acquisitions.”
[It is desirable, owing to the constant
misunderstandings on the subject, that
a word should be added here as to the
production of congenital variations by
changed or novel conditions which act
upon the parent’s body, and so upon the
germs within it. That such effects
are produced was one of Darwin’s
main contentions, in support of which
he produced important evidence. Yet
many persons plunge into the question
as to whether Lamarck’s theory of
the transmission of acquired characters,
or, on the other hand, Darwin’s theory
of the natural selection and transmis
sion of congenital variations, is true,
without knowing what has been sup
posed, proved, and published in these
matters.
No one when opposing
Lamarck ever denies that important,
even essential, effects are produced by
agencies which act upon the parental
body. Yet, every now and then, the
fact that they do—is triumphantly an
nounced as something new by persons
who imagine themselves to be believers
in Lamarck. "What!” they say, “you
declare that the effect of agencies acting
on the parent’s body cannot influence
the offspring ! Look here ! ” The state
of mind of these persons is a result
of superficial acquaintance with the
discussion and refusal to read the
actual statements made by Darwin
and by Lamarck.
Lamarck’s contention was that the
identical changes caused in the struc
ture of an individual animal or plant
by the action upon it of a novel
environment—such as increase of a
part by use or decrease by disuse, as
well as other responses of an adaptive
character—are transmitted by genera
tion to its offspring, and continue to
appear in successive generations derived
from that offspring, even when the
cause which set up the original modi
fication of structure has ceased to act.
The direct adaptation of the structure
of such individuals to new environ
ment was supposed by Lamarck to
become fixed, and thenceforth trans*
mitted by heredity. What may be
called a character superimposed on
individuals, during their individual life
as a direct reaction and adaptation to
a new external influence or agency,
was held by Lamarck to become
suddenly a thing of deeper quality, to
be passed on in all its details by the
germ to a new generation. On the
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
other hand, Darwin, whilst denying
that such inheritance of the adapta
tion of an organ, arising from the
action upon such organ of new condi
tions, was usual or capable of account
ing for the gradual development of
new specific forms, did categorically
state that he attributed the origin of
congenital variations (by the natural
selection or survival of which he
held that new species originate) to the
action or influence of changed condi
tions upon the parental body, and
through it upon the reproductive germs.
The great and fundamental differ
ence between the result of changed
conditions formulated by Darwin
and that formulated by Lamarck
is that Darwin showed that the
result of changed conditions is not
an adaptive change of the shape or
structure of the parental organism or
of its offspring—fitting it to meet the
particular change of conditions which
induced the change—but a disturbance,
an arbitrary alteration (often very
minute) in the germs within the body
of the affected organism. So that the
young which it produces show in
creased “ variation ” or departure from
the exact model of the parental form
in directions or ways having no signi
ficance so far as the nature of the
change of conditions is concerned.
Darwin’s statements on this matter
are often ignored, and it is erroneously
declared that he does not account for
the origin of variations. No doubt
there is more to be ascertained in the
direction which Darwin indicated. I
will quote here a passage taken from
Mr. Darwin’s eleventh edition of his
Origin of Species, 1872, pp. 7-8, which
presents his view on this matter. He
15
says : “ With respect to what I have
called the indirect action of changed
conditions—namely, through the repro
ductive system being affected—we may
infer that variability is thus induced
partly from the fact of this system
being extremely sensitive to any change
in the conditions, and partly from the
similarity (as Kolreuter and others
have remarked) between the varia
bility which follows from the crossing
of distinct species and that which
may be observed with plants and
animals when reared under new or
unnatural conditions. Many facts
clearly show how eminently suscep
tible the reproductive system is to
very slight changes in the surrounding
conditions.”
Darwin goes on to
summarise some of these facts, refer
ring for details to his book on The
Variation of Plants and Animals under
Domestication. He then proceeds:
“ Some naturalists have maintained
that all variations are connected with
the act of sexual reproduction; but
this is certainly an error, for I have
given in another work a long list of
‘ sporting plants,’ as they are called by
gardeners—that is, of plants which
have suddenly produced a single bud
with a new and sometimes widely
different character from that of the
other buds on the same plant.” He
concludes with reference to the relation
between the conditions which cause
variation and the particular result
ensuing that ‘ we clearly see that the
nature of the conditions is of subor
dinate importance, in comparison with
the nature of the organism, in deter
mining each particular form of varia
tion—perhaps not of more importance
than has the nature of the spark by
�76
TSE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
which a mass of combustible matter
is ignited in determining the nature of
the flames.” The effect of external
agencies in producing curiously definite
variations of buds or of offspring has
by other writers been compared (merely
in respect of their non-significance and
want of relation to the nature of the
condition which starts them) to the
production of a new pattern in a
kaleidoscope by the external agency
of a slight jar or tap on the apparatus.
Such variations are truly enough
responses to external changes, but
they have no qualitative or even
quantitative relation to the external
change.
They may therefore be
described as “ non-significant ” in re
lation to the external changes which
set them going, and are totally differ
ent from the adaptive changes of the
form or structure of a parental body
which have a direct correspondence with
the nature and amount of the novel
condition or stimulus, and were supposed
by Lamarck to be transmitted as such
from the parent to its offspring.]
The attempt to resuscitate Lamarck’s
views on the inheritance of acquired
characters has been met not only by
the demand for the production of
experimental proof that such inherit
ance takes place, which has never
been produced, but on Weismann’s
part by a demonstration that the
reproductive cells of organisms are, in
very many cases, developed and set
aside from the rest of the tissues at
so early a period that it is extremely
improbable that changes brought about
in those other tissues by unaccustomed
incident forces can be specifically com
municated to the germ-cells so as to
make their appearance in the offspring
by heredity. Apart from this, I have
drawn attention to the fact that
Lamarck’s first and second laws (as
he terms them) of heredity are con
tradictory the one of the other, and
therefore may be dismissed. In 1894
I wrote:—
Normal conditions of environment
have for many thousands of generations
moulded the individuals of a given
species of organism, and determined as
each individual developed and grew
‘responsive’ quantities in its parts
(characters); yet, as Lamarck tells us,
and as we know, there is in every
individual born a potentiality wThich
has not been extinguished. Change
the normal conditions of the species
in the case of a young individual taken
to-day from the site where for thou
sands of generations its ancestors have
responded in a perfectly defined way
to the normal and defined conditions
of environment; reduce the daily or
the seasonal amount of solar radiation
to which the individual is exposed; or
remove the aqueous vapour from the
atmosphere; or alter the chemical
composition of the pabulum accessible ;
or force the individual to previously
unaccustomed muscular effort, or to
new pressures and strains; and (as
Lamarck bids us observe), in spite of
all the long-continued response to the
earlier normal specific conditions, the
innate congenital potentiality shows
itself. The individual under the new
quantities of environing agencies shows
new responsive quantities in those
parts of its structure concerned, new
or acquired characters.
“ So far, so good. What Lamarck
next asks us to accept, as his ‘ second
law,’ seems not only to lack the
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
support of experimental proof, but to
be inconsistent with what has just
preceded it. The new character, which
is ex hypothesi, as was the old char
acter (length, breadth, weight of a
part) which it has replaced, a response
to environment, a particular moulding
or manipulation by incident forces of
the potential congenital quality of the
race, is, according to Lamarck, all of a
sudden raised to extraordinary powers.
The new or freshly acquired character
is declared by Lamarck and his adher
ents to be capable of transmission by
generation; that is to say, it alters
the potential character of the species.
It is no longer a merely responsive or
reactive character, determined quanti
tatively by quantitative conditions of
the environment, but becomes fixed
and incorporated in the potential of
the race, so as to persist when other
quantitative external conditions are
substituted for those which originally
determined it. In opposition to
Lamarck, one must urge, in the first
place, that this thing has never been
shown experimentally to occur; and,
in the second place, that there is no
ground for holding its occurrence to
be probable, but, on the contrary,
strong reason for holding it to be
improbable. Since the old character
(length, breadth, weight) had not
become fixed and congenital after
many thousands of successive genera
tions of individuals had developed it
in response to environment, but gave
place to a new character when new
conditions operated on an individual
(Lamarck’s first law), why should we
suppose that the new character is
likely to become fixed after a much
shorter time of responsive existence,
77
or to escape the operation of the first
law? Clearly there is no reason (so
far as Lamarck’s statement goes) for
any such supposition, and the two
so-called laws of Lamarck are at
variance with one another.”
In its most condensed form my
argument has been stated thus by
Professor Poulton: Lamarck’s “ first
law assumes that a past history of
indefinite duration is powerless to
create a bias by which the present
can be controlled; while the second
assumes that the brief history of the
present can readily raise a bias to
control the future.”1
An important light is thrown on
some facts which seem at first sight
to favour the Lamarckian hypothesis
by the consideration that, though an
“acquired” character is not trans
mitted to offspring as the consequence
of the action of external agencies
determining the “ acquirement,” yet
the tendency to react exhibited by the
parent is transmitted, and if the ten
dency is exceptionally great a false
suggestion of a Lamarckian inheri
tance can readily result. This inheri
tance of “ variation in tendencies to
react ” has a wide application, and has
led me to coin the word “ educability,”
as mentioned in my remarks on
Psychology (p. 71).
The principle of physiological selec
tion advocated by the late Dr. Romanes
does not seem to have caused much
discussion, and has been unduly
neglected by subsequent writers. It
was ingenious, and was based on some
interesting observations, but has failed
to gain support.
1 Nature, Vol. LI., 1894, p. 127.
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
The observations of de Vries— application of them to the explanation
showing that in cultivated varieties of many difficult cases of the structure
of plants a new form will sometimes and distribution of organisms.
assert itself suddenly and attain a
Two general principles which Mr.
certain period of dominance, though Darwin fully recognised appear to me
not having been gradually brought to deserve more consideration and
into existence by a slow process of more general application to the his
selection—-have been considered by tory of species than he had time to
him, and by a good many other give to them, or than his followers
naturalists, as indicating the way in have accorded to them. The first is
which new species arise in Nature. the great principle of “ correlation of
The suggestion is a valuable one, if variation,” from which it follows that,
not very novel; but a great deal of whilst natural selection may be
observation will have to be made favouring some small and obscure
before it can be admitted as really change in an unseen group of cells
having a wide bearing upon the origin —such as digestive, pigmentary, or
of species. The same is true of those nervous cells, and that change a
interesting observations which were change of selective value—there may
first made by Mendel, and have been be, indeed often is, as we know, a
resuscitated and extended with great correlated or accompanying change in
labour and ingenuity by recent workers, a physiologically related part of far
especially in this country by Bateson greater magnitude and prominence to
and his pupils. If it should prove to the eye of the human onlooker. This
be true that varieties when crossed do accompanying or correlated character
not, in the course of eventual inter has no selective value, is not an
breeding, produce intermediate forms adaptation—is, in fact, a necessary
as hybrids, but that characters are but useless by-product. A list of a
either dominant or recessive, and that few cases of this kind was given by
breeds result having pure unmixed Darwin, but it is most desirable that
characters, we should, in proportion more should be established. For they
as the Mendelian law is shown to enable us to understand how it is that
apply to all tissues and organs and to specific characters, those seen and
a majority of organisms, have before noted on the surface by systematists,
us a very important and determining are not in most cases adaptations of
principle in all that relates to heredity selective value. They also open a
and variation. It remains, however, wide vista of incipient and useless
to be shown how far the Mendelian developments which may suddenly, in
phenomenon is general. And it is, of their turn, be seized upon by ever
course, admitted on all sides that, watchful natural selection and raised
even were the Mendelian phenomenon to a high pitch of growth and function.
The second, somewhat, but by no
general and raised to the rank of a law
of heredity, it would not be subversive means altogether, neglected principle
of Mr. Darwin’s generalisations, but is that a good deal of the important
probably tend to the more ready variation in both plants and animals
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
79
is not the variation of a minute part interest to mankind, who do not accept
or confined to one organ, but has their diseases unresistingly and die as
really an inner physiological basis, animals do, so purifying their race, but
and may be a variation of a whole incessantly combat and fight disease,
organic system or of a whole tissue producing new and terrible forms of
expressing itself at several points and it, by their wilful interference with
in several shapes. In fact, we should the earlier rule of Nature.
Our knowledge of disease has been
perhaps more generally conceive of
enormously advanced in the last quarter
variation as not so much the accom
plishment and presentation of one of a century, and in an important
little mark or difference in weight, degree our power of arresting it, by
length, or colour, as the expression of two great lines of study going on side
a tendency to vary in a given tissue or by side, and originated, not by medical
organ in a particular way. Thus we men nor by physiologists in the narrow
are prepared for the rapid extension technical sense, but by naturalists, a
and dominance of the variation if once botanist, and a zoologist. Ferdinand
it is favoured by selective breeding. It Cohn, Professor of Botany in Breslau,
seems to me that such cases as the by his own researches and by personal
complete disappearance of scales from training in his laboratory, gave to
the integument of some osseous fishes, Robert Koch the start on his distin
or the possible retention of three or guished career as a bacteriologist. It
four scales out of some hundreds is to Metschnikoff the zoologist and
present in nearly allied forms, favour embryologist that we owe the doctrine
this mode of conceiving of variation. of phagocytosis, and the consequent
So, also, does the marked tendency to theory of immunity now so widely
produce membranous expansions of the accepted.
We must not forget that in this
integument in the bats, not only between
same period much of the immortal
the digits and from the axilla, but from
the ears and different regions of the work of Pasteur on hydrophobia, of
face. Of course, the alternative hairy Behring and Roux on diphtheria, and
or smooth condition of the integuments of Ehrlich and many others to whom
both in plants and animals is a familiar the eternal gratitude of mankind is
instance in which a tendency extending due, has been going on. It is only
over a large area is recognised as that some fifteen years since Calmette
which constitutes the variation. In showed that, if cobra poison were in
smooth or hairy varieties we do not troduced into the blood of a horse in
postulate an individual development of less quantity than would cause death
hairs subjected one by one to selection the horse would tolerate, with little
and consequent survival or repression. disturbance, after ten days, a full dose,
Disease.— The study of the phy and then day after day an increasing
siology of unhealthy, injured, or dose, until the horse, without any
diseased organisms is called pathology. inconvenience, received an injection
It necessarily has an immense area of of cobra poison large enough to kill
observation, and is of transcending thirty horses of its size. Some of the
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
horse’s blood, being now withdrawn, the improvement in human conditions
was found to contain a very active which can thus be effected, yet we
antidote to cobra poison — what is cannot hope for any really complete or
called an antitoxin. The procedure satisfactory realisation of the ideal of
in the preparation of the antitoxin is escape from contact with infective
practically the same as that previously germs. The task is beyond human
adopted by Behring in the preparation powers. The conviction has now been
of the antitoxin of diphtheria poison. arrived at that, whilst we must take
Animals treated with injections of these every precaution to diminish infection,
antitoxins are immune to the poison yet our ultimate safety must come
itself when subsequently injected with from within—namely ,from the activity,
it, or, if already suffering from the the trained, stimulated, and carefully
poison (as, for instance, by snake-bite), guarded activity, of those wonderful
are readily shown by experiment to be colourless, amceba - like corpuscles
rapidly cured by the injection of the whose use was so long unrecognised,
appropriate antitoxin. This is, as all but has now been made clear by the
will admit, an intensely interesting bit patiently continued experiments and
of biology. The explanation of the arguments of Metschnikoff, who has
formation of the antitoxin in the blood named them “ phagocytes.”
The
and its mode of antagonising the poison doctrine of the activity and immense
is not easy. It seems that the anti importance of these corpuscles of the
toxin is undoubtedly formed from the living body, which form part of the
corresponding toxin or poison, and all-pervading connective tissues and
that the antagonism can be best under float also in the blood, is in its nature
stood as a chemical reaction by which and inception opposed to what are
the complex molecule of the poison is called the “ humoral ” and “ vitalistic ”
upset, or effectively modified.
theories of resistance to infection. Of
The remarkable development of this kind were the beliefs that the
Metschnikoff’s doctrine of phago liquids of the living body have an
cytosis during the past quarter of a inherent and somewhat vague power
century is certainly one of the charac of resisting infective germs, and even
teristic features of the activity of bio that the mere living quality of the
logical science in that period. At first tissues was in some unknown way
ridiculed as “ Metschnikoffism,” it has antagonistic to foreign intrusive disease
now won the support of its former germs.
adversaries.
The first eighteen years of Metsch
Bor a long time the ideal of hygien nikoff ’s career, after his undergraduate
ists has been to preserye man from all course, were devoted to zoological and
contact with the germs of infection, to embryological investigations. He dis
destroy them and destroy the animals covered many important facts, such as
conveying them, such as rats, mos the alternation of generations in the
quitoes, and other flies. But it has parasitic worm of the frog’s lung—
now been borne in upon us that, useful Ascaris nigrovenosa—and the history
as such attempts are, and great as is of the growth from the egg of sponges
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
In a transparent water-flea Metschnikoff saw these amceba-like, colour
less, floating blood-corpuscles swallow
ing and digesting the spores of a
parasitic fungus which had attacked
the water-fleas and was causing their
death. He came to the conclusion
and medusse. In these latter re
searches he came into contact with
the wonderfully active cells, or living
corpuscles, which in many low forms
of life can be seen by transparency in
the living animal. He saw that these
corpuscles (as was, indeed, already
Fig. 38-
Fig. 37.
Fig. 40.
81
Fig. 41.
Fig. 42.
Fig. 37.—Phagocyte or colourless corpuscle of a guinea-pig in the act of engulfing two Spirilla or
parasitic vegetable microbes of a spiral shape.
,
. , . _ ... ,
Fig. 38.—The same, half-an-hour later; one of the Spirilla is nearly completely engulfed.
Fig. 39._ The same, ten minutes later still; one of the Spirilla is completely absorbed into the
substance (protoplasm) of the phagocyte. (From Metsc'hnikoff’s book, Immunity, kindly supplied by
the Cambridge University Press.)
Fig. 40.—Phagocyte of a guinea-pig in the course of engulfing a very mobile undulating spirillum.
Fig'. 41.—The same, forty minutes later.
Fig 42 —The same, taken half-an-hour after Fig. 41. (From MetscHmkoff’s Immunity.}
Fig 43 —A large kind of phagocyte of the guinea-pig, killed and stained for microscopic examina
tion It shows the large spherical nucleus and three specimens of the Spirillum of relapsing-fever which
have been engulfed, and are lying within its protoplasm. They would have been slowly digested—that
is to say dissolved by the digestive juices within the phagocyte. (From Metschmkoff’s Immunity.)
known) resemble the well-known
amoeba, and can take into their soft
substance (protoplasm), at all parts of
their surface, any minute particles,
and digest them, thus destroying them.
that this is the chief, if not the whole,
value of these corpuscles in higher as
well as lower animals, in all of which
they are very abundant. It was known
that when a wound, bringing in foreign
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matter, is inflicted on a vertebrate
animal, the blood - vessels become
gorged in the neighbourhood, and the
colourless corpuscles escape through
the walls of the vessels in crowds.
Their business in so doing, Metschnikoff showed, is to eat up the foreign
matter, and also to eat up and remove
the dead, wounded tissue. He there
fore called these white or colourless
corpuscles “ phagocytes,” the eater
cells, and in his beautiful book on
Inflammation, published twenty years
ago, proved the extreme importance of
their activity. At the same time he
had shown that they eat up intrusive
bacteria and other germs (see Figs. 3743); and his work for the last twentyfive years has mainly consisted in
demonstrating that they are the chief,
and probably the only, agents at work
in either ridding the human body of an
attack of disease-causing germs, or in
warding off even the commencement of
an attack, so that the man or animal
in which they are fully efficient is
“ immune ”—that is to say, cannot be
effectively attacked by disease-germs.
Disease-germs, bacteria, or protozoa
produce poisons which sometimes are
too much for the phagocytes, poison
ing them and so getting the upper
hand. But, as Metschnikoff showed,
the training of the phagocytes by weak
doses of the poison of the disease
germ, or by weakened cultures of the
disease-germ itself, brings about a
power of resistance in the phagocytes
to the germ’s poison, and thus makes
them capable of attacking the germs
and keeping them at bay. Hence the
value of inoculations.
The discussion and experiments
arising from Metschnikoff’s demon
strations have led to the discovery of
the production by the phagocytes of
certain exudations from their sub
stance which have a most important
effect in weakening the resistance of
the intrusive bacteria and rendering
them easy prey for the phagocyte.
These are called “ sensitisers,” and
have been largely studied. They may
be introduced artificially into ' the
blood and tissues so as to facilitate
the work of the phagocytes, and no
doubt it is a valuable remedial measure
to make use of such sensitisers as a
treatment. Dr. Wright considers that
such sensitisers are formed in the
blood and tissues independently of the
phagocytes, and has called them
“opsonins,” under which name he
has made most valuable application of
the method of injecting them into the
body so as to facilitate the work of
the phagocytes in devouring the hostile
bacteria of various diseases. Each
kind of disease-producing microbe has
its own sensitiser or opsonin; hence
there has been much careful research
and experiment required in order to
bring the discovery into practical use.
Metschnikoff himself holds and quotes
experiments to show that the “ opso
nins ” are actually produced by the
phagocytes themselves. That this
should be so is in accordance with
some striking zoological facts, as I
pointed out more than twenty years ago.1
For the lowest multicellular animals
provided with a digestive sac or gut,
such as the polyps, have that sac
lined by digestive cells which have the
same amoeboid character as “phago1 In a review of Metschnikofi’s “ Lemons
sur 1’Inflammation ” in Nature, 1889.
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
cytes,” and actually digest to a large
extent by swallowing or taking into
their individual protoplasm raw par
ticles of food. Such particles are
enclosed in a temporary cavity, or
vacuole, into which the cell-protoplasm
secretes digestive ferment and other
chemical agents. Now there is no
doubt that such digestive vacuoles may
burst and so pour out into the polyp’s
stomach a digestive juice which will
act on food particles outside the sub
stance of the cells, and thus by the
substitution of this process of out
pouring of the secretion for that of
ingestion of food particles into the
cells we get the usual form of digestion
by juices secreted into a digestive
cavity. Now this being certainly the
case in regard to the history of the
original phagocytes lining the polyp’s
gut, it does not seem at all unlikely,
but on the contrary in a high degree
probable, that the phagocytes of the
blood and tissues should behave in
the same way and pour out sensitisers
and opsonins to paralyse and prepare
their bacterial food. And the experi
ments of Metschnikoff’s pupils and
followers show that this is undoubtedly
the case. Whether there is any great
variety of and difference between
“sensitisers” and “opsonins” is a
matter which is still the subject of
active experiment. Metschnikoff’s con
clusion, as recently stated in regard to
the whole progress of this subject, is
that the phagocytes in our bodies
should be stimulated in their activity
in order successfully to fight the germs
of infection.
Alcohol, opium, and
even quinine hinder the phagocytic
action; they should therefore be
entirely eschewed or used only with
88
great caution where their other and
valuable properties are urgently needed.
It appears that the injection of blood
serum into the tissues of animals
causes an increase in the number and
activity of the phagocytes, and thus
an increase in the animals’ resistance
to pathogenic germs. Thus Durham
(who was a pioneer in his observations
on the curious phenomena of the
agglutination ” of blood corpuscles
in relation to disease) was led to
suggest the injection of sera during
surgical operations, and experiments
recently quoted by Metschnikoff seem
to show that the suggestion was well
founded. Both German and French
surgeons have employed the method
with successful results, and the demon
stration that an immense number of
microbes are thus taken up and
destroyed by the multiplication (due
to their regular increase by cell
division) of the phagocytes of the
injected patient. After years of oppo
sition bravely met in the pure scientific
spirit of renewed experiment and
demonstration, Metschnikoff is at last
able to say that the foundation-stone
of the hygiene of the tissues—the
thesis that our phagocytes are our
arms of defence against infective germs
—has been generally accepted.
Another feature of the progress of
our knowledge of disease—as a scien
tific problem—is the recent recognition
that minute animal parasites of that
low degree of unicellular structure to
which the name “ Protozoa ” is given
are the causes of serious and ravaging
diseases, and that the minute algoid
plants, the bacteria, are not alone in
possession of this field of activity. It
was Laveran—a French medical man
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Fig. 44.
A diagram showing the life-history and migration of the Malaria parasite, Laverania Malaria, as
discovered by Laveran, Ross, and Grassi. The stages above the dotted line take place in the blood of
man, The oblopg-pointed parasite is seen entering the blood at n just below No. I. The circles
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
—who, just about twenty-five years
ago, discovered the minute animal
organism in the red blood-corpuscles
which is the cause of malaria (see
Mg, 44). Year by year ever since our
knowledge of this terrible little parasite
has increased. We now know many
similar to, but not identical with it,
living in the blood of birds, reptiles,
and frogs (see Fig. 45).
It is the great merit of Sir Ronald
Ross, formerly of the Indian Army
Medical Staff, to have discovered, by
most patient and persevering experi
ment, that the malaria parasite passes
a part of its life in the spot-winged
gnat or mosquito {Anopheles), not, as
he had at first supposed, in the
common gnat or mosquito {Culex),
and that if we can get rid of spot
winged mosquitoes or avoid their
attentions, or even only prevent them
from sucking the blood of malarial
patients, we can lessen, or even abolish,
malaria.
This great discovery was followed
by another as to the production of the
deadly “ Nagana ” horse and cattle
disease in South Africa by a screw
like, minute animal parasite Trypano
soma, Brucii (see Fig. 46 B). The
85
Tsetze fly (see Fig. 48 A, B), which
was already known in some way to
produce this disease, was found by
Colonel David Bruce to do so by con
veying by its bite the Trypanosoma
from wild big-game animals to the
domesticated horses and cattle of the
colonists. The discovery of the parasite
and its relation to the fly and the
disease was as beautiful a piece of
scientific investigation as biologists
have ever seen. A curious and very
important fact was discovered by
Bruce—-namely, that the native big
game (zebras, antelopes, and probably
buffaloes) are tolerant of the parasite.
The Trypanosoma grows and multiplies
in their blood, but does not kill them
or even injure them. It is only the
unaccustomed introduced animals from
Europe which are poisoned by the
chemical excreta of the Trypanosomes
and die in consequence. Hence the
wild creatures—brought into a condi
tion of tolerance by natural selection
and the dying out of those susceptible
to the poison—form a sort of “ reser
voir ” of deadly Trypanosomes for the
Tsetze flies to carry into the blood of
new-comers. The same phenomenon
of “reservoir-hosts” (as I have else-
represent the red blood-discs of man. Schizogony means multiplication by simple division or splitting,
and it is seen in Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. The stages below the dotted line are passed in the body of the
spot-winged gnats of the genus Anopheles. A peculiar crescent or sausage-shaped condition is assumed
by the parasite inside the red corpuscle No. VI. These are found to be of two kinds, male and female,
Nos. Vila and Vllb. They are swallowed by the spot-winged gnat when it sucks the blood of an infected
ma.n- Fere I11 the gut of the gnat they become sphericle; the male spheres produce spermatozoa No.Xa,
whit® fuse with and fertilise the female spheres or egg-cells No. XI. An active worm-like form No. XIII
results, which pushes its way partly through the wall of the gnat’s gut, and is then nourished by the
gnat s blood. It swells up, divides internally again and again, and is enclosed in a firm transparent case
or cyst, Nos. XIV to XVIII. The cysts are far larger in proportion than is shown in the diagram, and
are visible to the naked eye. The final product of the breaking-up, which is called sporogony, is a vast
number of needle-shaped spores or young (called Exotospores, as opposed to the Enhaemospores, which
are formed m the human blood, as seen in Nos. 9 and 10, and serve there to spread the infection among
the red corpuscles). The needle-shaped spores formed in the gnat’s body accumulate in its salivary
glands, and pass out by the mouth of the gnat wnen it stabs a new human victim, who thus becomes
infected, No. XIX.
Had the sausage-like phases Nob. Vila and VHb been swallowed by a common gnat or mosquito of
tne genus Culex, they would have been digested and destroyed. It is only in species of gnats of the kind
known as Anopheles that the parasite can undergo its sexual development and subsequent process of
the formation of cysts and needle-shaped exotospores. (After Minchin in Part I. of Lankester’s Treatise
on Zoology, published by A. and C. Black.)
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Fig. 45.
Jbankestrella ranarum (Lank.), the parasite of the red blood-corpuscles of the edible frog, described
originally as Drevanidium ranarum by Lankester in 1882, and previously without name in 1871. The
large ovak^repreTenUhe red corpuscles of the frog ; the dark central mass is the nucleus, N. In a t w®
spindle-shaped parasites are seen ; in b one larger parasite with nucleus n'
^^fVhc spherical
parasite is V-shaped. In d the parasite has become spherical, and w;so ine also. Li f the sphci cal
Lankester’s Treatise on Zoology.)
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
where called them) has since been
observed in the case of malaria; the
children of the native blacks in Africa
and in other malarious regions are
tolerant of the malarial parasite, as
87
which consists in repulsion or destruc
tion of the parasite.
The Trypanosomes have acquired a
terrible notoriety within the last ten
years, since another species, also
E.
Fig. 46.
Various species of Trypanosoma from the blood of mammals, birds, and reptiles. A, T. Lewisii, i
from the blood of rats ; B, T. Brucii, the parasite of the Nagana or Tsetze-fly disease, found in the blood
of horses, cattle, and big game; O, T. gambiensi, the parasite causing sleeping sickness in man;
D, T. equinum, which causes the mal de caderas in South American horse ranches ; E, T. noctuee, from
the blood of the little owl, Athene noctua ; F, T. avium, found in the blood of many birds; G, a species
found in the blood of Indian pigeons; H, T. Ziemanni, a second species from the blood of the little owl;
J, T. Damoniee, from the blood of a tortoise; c g granules; v vacuole; I s fold of the crest or undulating
membrane.
These figures are from Dr. Woodcock’s article on the “ Heemoflagellates ” in the Quarterly Journal
of Microscopical Science, April and June, 1906. (See also the figures in the next chapter relating to
Sleeping Sickness.)
many as 80 per cent, of children under
ten being found to be infected, and yet
not suffering from the poison. This
is not the same thing as the immunity
carried by a Tsetze fly of another
species, has been discovered by Castellani in cases of “ sleeping sickness ” iu
Uganda, and demonstrated by Colonel
E
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Bruce to be the cause of that awful
disease.1 Over 200,000 natives of
Uganda have died from it within the
last five years. It is incurable, and,
sad to relate, not only a certain
number of European employees have
succumbed to it in tropical Africa,
but a brave young officer of the Army
Medical Corps, Lieutenant Tulloch,
has died from the disease, acquired by
him in the course of an investigation
of this disease and its possible cure,
which he was carrying out, in associa
tion with other men of science, on the
Victoria Nyanza Lake in Central
Africa. Lieutenant Tulloch was sent
out to this investigation by the Eoyal
Society of London, and I will venture
to ask my readers to join that body in
sympathy for his friends and admira
tion for him and the other courageous
men who risk their lives in the en
deavour to arrest disease.
Trypanosomes are now being recog
nised in the most diverse regions of
the world as the cause of disease—
new horse diseases in South America,2
in North Africa, in the Philippines,
and East India are all traced to
peculiar species of Trypanosome.
Other allied forms are responsible
for Delhi-sore and certain peculiar
Indian fevers of man. A peculiar
‘and ultra-minute parasite of the blood
cells causes Texas fever, and various
African fevers deadly to cattle.3 In
1 See the next chapter devoted to this
subject.
2 [As well as a new human disease carried
by a huge bug in Brazil. J
8 From recent researches it appears most
probable that ah extremely minute parasite
of this nature is the cause of yellow fever.
A special kind of mosquito, the Stegomgia
fasciata, has for some years now been known
to be its carrier.
all these cases, as also in that of
plague, the knowledge of the carrier
of the disease, often a tick or acarid—•
in that of plague the flea of the rat—is extremely important, as well as the
knowledge of reservoir - hosts when
such exist.
The zoologist thus comes into closer
touch than ever with the profession of
medicine, and the time has arrived
when the professional students of
disease fully admit that they must
bring to their great and hopeful task
of abolishing the diseases of man the
fullest aid from every branch of bio
logical science. I need not say how
great is the contentment of those who
have long worked at apparently useless
branches of science—such as are the
careful and elaborate distinction of
every separate kind of animal and the
life-history and structure peculiar to
each—in the belief that all knowledge is
good, to find that the science they have
cultivated has become suddenly and
urgently of the highest practical value.
I have not time to do more than
mention here the effort that is being
made by combined international
research and co-operation to push
further in our knowledge of phthisis
and of cancer, with a view to their
destruction. It is only within the
past quarter of a century that the
parasite of phthisis or tubercle has
been made known; we may hope that
it will not be long before we have
similar knowledge as to cancer. Only
eighteen months have elapsed since
Fritz Schaudinn discovered the longsought parasitic germ of syphilis, the
Spirocheta pallida (see Fig. 6). As I
write these words1 the sad news of
1 [In 1906].
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Schaudinn’s death at the age of thirtyfive comes to me from his family at
Hamburg—an irreparable loss.
Let me finally state, in relation to
this study of disease, what is the
simple fact — namely, that if the
people of Britain wish to make an
end of infective and other diseases
they must take every possible means
to discover capable investigators and
employ them for this purpose. To do
this far more money is required than
is at present spent in that direction.
It is necessary, if we are to do our
utmost, to spend a thousand pounds
of public money on this task where
we now spend one pound. It would
be reasonable and wise to expend ten
million pounds a year of our revenues
on the investigation and attempt to
destroy disease. Actually, what is so
spent is a mere nothing, a few thou
sands a year. Meanwhile our people
are dying by thousands of preventable
disease.
2.—The Advancement of Science as
Measured by the Support given
to it by Public Funds, and the
Respect Accorded to Scientific
Work by the British Government
and the Community at Large.
Whilst I have been able, though in
a very fragmentary and incomplete
way, to indicate the satisfactory and,
indeed, the wonderful progress of
science in the last quarter of a cen
tury, so far as the making of new
knowledge is concerned, I am sorry
to say that there is by no means
a corresponding “ advancement” of
science in that signification of the
word which implies the increase of
89
the influence of science in the life of
the community, the increase of the
support given to it, and of the desire
to aid in its progress, to discover and
then to encourage and reward those
who are specially fitted to increase
scientific knowledge and to bring it to
bear so as to promote the welfare of
the community.
It is, unfortunately, true that the
successive political administrators of
the affairs of this country, as well as
the permanent officials, are altogether
unaware to-day, as they were twentyfive years ago, of the vital importance
of that knowledge which we call
science, and of the urgent need for
making use of it in a variety of public
affairs. Whole departments of Govern
ment in which scientific knowledge is
the one thing needful are carried on
by Ministers, permanent secretaries,
assistant secretaries, and clerks who
are wholly ignorant of science, and
naturally enough dislike it, since it
cannot be used by them, and is in
many instances the condemnation of
their official employment. Such officials
are, of course, not to be blamed, but
rather the general indifference of the
public to the unreasonable way in
which its interests are neglected.
A difficult feature in treating of this
subject is that when one mentions the
fact that Ministers of State and the
officials of the public service are not
acquainted with science, and do not
even profess to understand its results
or their importance, one’s statement
of this very obvious and notorious fact
is apt to be regarded as a personal
offence. It is difficult to see wherein
the offence lies, for no one seeks to
blame these officials for a condition of
�90
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
things which is traditional and frankly
admitted.
This is really a very serious matter
for the scientific world to consider and
deal with. We represent a line of
activity, a group of professions which
are in our opinion of vital importance
to the well-being of the nation. We
know that those interests which we
value so highly are not merely ignored
and neglected, but are actually treated
as of no account or as non-existent by
the old-established class of politicians
and administrators. It is not too much
to say that there is a natural fear and
dislike of scientific knowledge on the
part of a large proportion of the per
sons who are devoid of it, and who
would cease to hold, or never have
held, the positions of authority or
emolument which they now occupy
were scientific knowledge of the
matters with which they undertake
to deal required of them. This is a
thorny subject, and one in which,
however much one may endeavour to
speak in general terms, it is difficult
to avoid causing personal annoyance.
Yet it seems to me one of urgent
importance. Probably an inquiry into
and discussion of the neglect of science
and the questionable treatment of scien
tific men by the administrative depart
ments of Government might with
advantage be undertaken by a com
mittee appointed by our great scientific
societies for the purpose.
At the same time, public attention
should be drawn in general terms to
the fact that science is not gaining
“ advancement ” in public and official
consideration and support. The reason
is, I think, to be found in the defective
education, both at school and univer
sity, of our governing class, as well as
in a racial dislike among all classes to
the establishment and support by public
funds of posts which the average man
may not expect to succeed, by popular
clamour or class privilege, in gaining
for himself—posts which must be held
by men of special training and mental
gifts. Whatever the reason for the
neglect, the only remedy which we can
possibly apply is that of improved
education for the upper classes, and
the continued effort to spread a know
ledge of the results of science and a
love for it amongst all members of the
community. If believers in science
took this matter seriously to heart,
they might do a great deal by insisting
that their sons, and their daughters
too, should have reasonable instruction
in science both at school and college.
They could, by their own initiative
and example, do a good deal to put an
end to the trifling with classical litera
ture and the absorption in athletics
which is considered by too many
schoolmasters as that which the
British parent desires as the education
of his children.
Within the past year a letter has
been published by a well-known noble
man who is one of the Trustees of the
British Museum, holding up to public
condemnation the method in which
the system laid down by the officials
of the Treasury, and sanctioned by
successive Governments, as to the
remuneration of scientific men, was
applied in an individual case. I desire
to place on record here the Earl of
Crawford’s letter to the Times of
October 31, 1905, for the careful con
sideration of those who desire the
advancement of science. When such
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
91
things are done, science cannot be said failure of science to gain increased in
to have advanced much in public con fluence and support in this country,
sideration or Governmental support:— but to mention some instances on the
other side of the account. As long
To the Editor of the “ Times."
SIB,—The death, noted by you to-day, of ago as 1842 the British Association
my dear friend and colleague Dr. Copeland, took over and developed an observatory
His Majesty’s Astronomer for Scotland, creates in the Deer Park at Kew, which was
a vacancy in the scientific staff of Great placed at the disposal of the Associa
Britain.
Will you permit me, Sir, to offer a word of tion by Her Majesty the Queen. Until
warning to any who may be asked to succeed 1871 the Association spent annually
him ?
a large part of its income—as much in
Students or masters of astronomy are not, later years as £600 a year—in carrying
in the selfish sense, business men, nor are
on the work of the Kew Observatory,
they, as a general rule, overburdened with
this world’s goods. It behoves them hence consisting of magnetic, meteorological,
forth to take more care as to their future in and physical observations. In 1871
case of illness or physical infirmity, and not the Association handed over the Obser
to trust to the gratitude or generous impulse vatory to the Royal Society, which
of the Treasury Department.
In old days it was the custom, when a man had received an endowment of £10,000
distinguished in science was brought into a from Mr. Gassiot for its maintenance,
high position in the Civil Service, that he was and had further devoted to that pur
credited with a certain number of years’ service pose considerable sums from its own
ranking for pension. This practice has been donation fund and Government grant.
done away with, and a bargain system sub
stituted. A short while ago the growing Further aid for it was also received
agonies of heart disease caused Dr. Copeland from private sources. From this Obser
to feel that he was less able to carry on the vatory at last has sprung, in the begin
duties of his post, and he determined to resign; ning of the present century, the National
but he learnt that under the scale, and in the
Physical Laboratory in Bushey Park,
absence of any special bargain, the pension he
would receive would not suffice for the neces a fine and efficient scientific institution,
sities of life. The only increase his friends built and supported by grants from the
could get from the Treasury was an offer to State, and managed by a committee of
allow him about half-a-crown a week extra really devoted men of science who are
by way of a house.
Indignant and ashamed of my Government, largely representatives of the Royal
I persuaded Dr. Copeland to withdraw his Society. In addition to the value of
resignation, and to retain the official position the site and buildings occupied by
which he has honoured till his death.
the National Physical Laboratory, the
1 trust, Sir, that this memorandum of mine Government has contributed altogether
may cause eminent men of science who are
asked to enter the service of the State when £34,000 to the capital expenditure on
already of middle age to take heed for their new buildings, fittings, and apparatus,
future welfare.
and has further assigned a grant of
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
£6,000 a year to the working of the
Cbawfobd.
laboratory. This institution all men of
2 Cavendish Square, October 28.
science are truly glad to have gained
It is more agreeable to me not to from the State, and they will remember
dwell further on the comparative with gratitude the statesmen—the late
�92
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Marquis of Salisbury, ths Right Hon.
Arthur J. Balfour, Mr. Haldane, and
others—as well as their own leaders
—Lord Rayleigh, Sir William Huggins,
and the active body of physicists in
the Royal Society—who have carried
this enterprise to completion. The
British Association has every reason
to be proud of its share in early days
in nursing the germ at Kew, which has
at length expanded into this splendid
national institution.
I may mention also another institu
tion which, during the past quarter of
a century, has come into existence,
and received, originally through the
influence of the late Lord Playfair (one
of the few men of science who have ever
occupied the position of a Minister of
the Grown), and later by the influence
of the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain,
a subsidy of £1,000 a year from the
Government and a contribution of
£5,000 towards its initial expenses.
This is the Marine Biological Associa
tion,1 which has a laboratory at Ply
mouth (see Pig. 47), and has lately
expended a special annual grant, at
the spontaneous invitation of His
Majesty’s Treasury, in conducting an
investigation of the North Sea in
accordance with an international
scheme devised by a central committee
of scientific experts. This scheme has
for its purpose the gaining of such know1 I had the honour and good fortune to
found this association, and to collect the funds
so generously given to it; then for many
years to act as its honorary secretary, to
design and superintend the erection of the
laboratory, and to organise, in conjunction
with my scientific colleagues, its staff, its
scheme of work and government. On the
death of our beloved President, Professor
Huxley, I was elected as his successor, and
still occupy that position.
ledge of the North Sea and its in
habitants as shall be useful in dealing
practically and by legislation with the
great fisheries of that area. The reader
will, perhaps, not be surprised to hear
that there are persons in high positions
who, though admittedly unacquainted
with the scientific questions at issue
or the proper manner of solving them,
are discontented with the action of the
Government in entrusting the expen
diture of public money to a body of
scientific men who give their services,
without reward or thanks, to carrying
out the purposes of the international
inquiry. Strange criticisms are offered
by these malcontents in regard to the
work done in the international explora
tion of the North Sea, and a desire is
expressed to secure the money for
expenditure by a less scientific agency.
I do not hesitate to say here that the
results obtained by the Marine Bio
logical Association are of great value
and interest, and, if properly con
tinued and put to practical application,
are likely to benefit very greatly the
fishery industry; on the other hand, if
the work is cut short or entrusted to
incompetent hands, it will, no doubt,
be the case that what has already been
done will lose its value—that is to
say, will have been wasted. There is
imminent danger of this perversion of
the funds assigned to this scientific
investigation taking place.1 There is
no guarantee for the continuance of
any funds or offices assigned to science
in one generation by the officials of the
next. The Mastership of the Mint,
held by Isaac Newton, and finally by
1 [The present Government (1911) has
withdrawn the special grant for North Sea
investigations.]
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
the ' great chemist Thomas Graham,
has been abolished, and its salary
appropriated by non-scientific officials.
Only a few years ago it was with great
difficulty that the Government of the
day was prevented from assigning the
Assistant-Directorship of Kew Gardens
to a young man of influence devoid of
all knowledge of botany I
One of the most solid tests of the
93
quent; they are rare in this country.
It is, therefore, with especial pleasure
that I call attention to a great gift to
science in this country made only a
few years ago.
Lord Iveagh has
endowed the Lister Institute, for
researches in connection with the
prevention of disease, with no less a
sum than a quarter of a million pounds
sterling. This is the largest gift ever
Fig. 47.
The Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association on the Citadel Hill, Plymouth, overlooking
Plymouth Sound. The laboratory was built with the aid of funds raised by public subscription and a
contribution of £5,000 by H.M. Government, and cost £12,200. The Association had up to the year 1906
expended, exclusive of this sum, since the opening of the laboratory in 1884, about £62,000, or an average
of £3,000 a year on the maintenance of the laboratory, steam-boat, and fishing boats, and in payment of
a staff of scientific observers. Of this sum the Government has contributed one-third; the rest has
come from private donations and subscriptions, and from the “ earnings ” of the laboratory by sale of
specimens, admission fees to the tank-room, etc. The journal of the Association, published at intervals,
records a vast amount of scientific work, advancing our knowledge of marine life and of the life-history
of fishes.
In addition to the above expenditure and results, the Association has superintended and most
carefully directed the expenditure of £6,000 a year during recent years in the investigation of the
southern area of the North Sea and of the Channel at the request of H.M. Government, the work being
part of the International Investigation of the North Sea. The very voluminous results of these inquiries
are published in special reports by the International Committee. Full particulars of the work of the
Marine Biological Association can be obtained from Dr. E. J. Allen, the Director, the Laboratory,
Citadel Hill, Plymouth, who will also receive donations and applications for membership of the
Association.
esteem and value attached to scientific
progress by the community is the dedi
cation of large sums of money to
scientific purposes by its wealthier
members. We know that in the
United States such gifts are not infre-
made to science in this country, and
will be productive of great benefit to
humanity. The Lister Institute took
its origin in the surplus of a fund
raised (at my suggestion, and with my
assistance as secretary) by Sir James
�94
THE ADVANCE OE SCIENCE
Whitehead, when Lord Mayor, for the
purpose of making a gift to the Pas
teur Institute in Paris, where many
English patients had been treated,
without charge, after being bitten by
rabid dogs. Three thousand pounds
was sent to M. Pasteur, and the sur
plus of a few hundred pounds was
made the starting-point of a fund
which grew, by one generous gift and
another, until the Lister Institute, on
the Thames Embankment at Chelsea,
was set up on a site presented by that
good and high-minded man the late
Duke of Westminster.
Many other noble gifts to scientific
research have been made in this
country during the period on which
we are looking back. Let us be thank
ful for them, and admire the wise
munificence of the donors. But none
the less we must refuse to rely en
tirely on such liberality for the deve
lopment of the army of science, which
has to do battle for mankind against
the obvious disabilities and sufferings
which afflict us and can be removed
by knowledge. The organisation and
finance of this army should be the care
of the State.
It is a fact, which many who have
observed it regret very keenly, that
there is to-day a less widespread inter
est than formerly in natural history
and general science outside the strictly
professional arena of the school and
university.
The field naturalists
among the squires and the country
parsons seem nowadays not to be so
numerous and active in their delight
ful pursuits as formerly, and the
Mechanics’ Institutes and Lecture
Societies of the days of Lord
Brougham have given place, to a very
large extent, to musical performances,
bioscopes, and other entertainments—
more diverting, but not really more
capable of giving pleasure, than those
in which science was popularised. No
doubt the organisation and profes
sional character of scientific work are
to a large extent the cause of this
falling-off in its attraction for ama
teurs. But perhaps that decadence is
also due in some measure to the in
creased general demand for a kind of
manufactured gaiety, readily sent out
in these days of easy transport from
the great centres of fashionable amuse
ment to the provinces and rural dis
tricts.
Before concluding this retrospect I
would venture to allude to the rela
tions of scientific progress to religion.
Putting aside the troubles connected
with special creeds and churches, and
the claims of the clerical profession to
certain funds and employments, to the
exclusion of laymen, it should, I think,
be recognised that there is no essential
antagonism between the scientific spirit
and what is called the religious sen
timent.
“ Religion,” said Bishop
Creighton, “ means the knowledge of
our destiny and of the means of ful
filling it.” We can say no more and
no less of Science. Men of Science
seek, in all reverence, to discover the
Almighty, the Everlasting.
They
claim sympathy and friendship with
those who, like themselves, have
turned away from the more material
struggles of human life, and have set
their hearts and minds on the know*
ledge of the Eternal.
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
95
Chapter III.
NATURE’S REVENGES: THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
Among the strange and mysterious
diseases to which mankind is subject
in regions less familiar to the civilised
world than Western Europe, none is
stranger or more appalling in its quiet,
inexorable deadliness than the Sleeping
Sickness of the West African coast.
Apparently it has existed among the
natives of that region from time
immemorial; but the first printed
record we have of it is due to Winter
bottom, who, writing in 1803 of Sierra
Leone, said: “ The Africans are very
subject to a species of lethargy which
they are much afraid of, as it proves
fatal in every instance.” One of the
latest notices of the disease, before it
became the subject of active investiga
tion within the last ten years, is that
of Miss Kingsley, who saw a few cases
near the Congo estuary; but, though
she was impressed by the mysterious
fatality of the disease, she did not
describe it as very prevalent or as a
general source of danger to life. The
opening up of the Congo basin and in
creased familiarity with the inner
lands of the West African coast have
shown that this disease is widely
scattered—though rarely so abundant
as to be a serious scourge—through
the whole of tropical West Africa.
Writers in the early part of the last
century described the disease as
occurring in the West Indies and in
Brazil. Its presence was almost cer
tainly due, in those days of the slave
trade, to the importation of negroes
already infected with the disease ; and
a curious theory obtained some favour,
according to which the sleeping sick
ness of the West Indian slaves was a
kind of nostalgia, and, in fact, the
manifestation of what is sometimes
called “ a broken heart.”
The signs that a patient has con
tracted the disease are very obvious.
They are recognised by the black
people, and the certainly fatal issue
accepted with calm acquiescence. The
usually intelligent expression of the
healthy negro is replaced by a dull,
apathetic appearance; and there is a
varying amount of fever and headache.
This may last for some weeks, but is
followed more or less rapidly by a
difficulty in locomotion and speech, a
trembling of the tongue and hands.
There is increased fever and constant
drowsiness, from which the patient is
roused only to take food. At last—usually after some three or four
months of illness—complete somno
lence sets in ; no food is taken, the
body becomes emaciated and ulcerated,
and the victim dies in a state of coma.
The course of the disease, from the
time when the apathetic stage is first
noticed, may last from two to twelve
months.
It is this terrible disease which has
lately appeared on the shores of the
Victoria Nyanza, in the kingdom of
Uganda, administered by the British
�96
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
Government. Until the early part of
the year 1901 there was not the
slightest suspicion that sleeping sick
ness occurred in any part of the
Uganda Protectorate; nor was it
known in East Africa at all, any more
than in the north and south of that
great continent. It seems gradually to
have crept up the newly-opened traderoutes of the Congo basin, and thence
to have spread into the west of
Uganda, the territory known as
Busoga. Numbers of Soudanese and
Congo men are known to have settled
in this region after the death of Emin
Pasha. First noticed in 1901, it was
estimated in June, 1902, by the
Commissioner of Uganda, writing
officially to the Marquess of Lans
downe, that 20,000 persons had died
of this disease in the district of Busoga
alone, and several thousands in the
more eastern portion of Uganda.
In 1906 the number of deaths in
this region due to sleeping sickness
since 1901 amounted to more than
200,000 ; and this though, most fortu
nately, the disease had not yet spread
eastward from Uganda into British
East Africa,1 nor, so far as had been
1 The disease has actually entered into the
administrative area known as British Bast
Africa, but has not made any rapid progress
towards the coast. According to a report by
Dr. Wiggins, the disease is confined in British
East Africa, as in Uganda, to those areas in
which Glossina palpalis occurs. [To this I
must now (1912) add that the disease has
spread into both the Upper Soudan and
Nyassaland. Continuous and praiseworthy
efforts to deal with the disease have been
made by the Colonial Office, and are still in
progress. An expedition has this winter been
sent, under Colonel Sir David Bruce, to study
the spread of the disease in Nyassaland. The
Royal Society of London has now for some
years maintained a special bureau, issuing
reports at regular intervals of all information
as to the investigations into sleeping sickness
reported, down the Nile. No curative
treatment for the disease has yet been
discovered; nor is there any authen
ticated instance of recovery.1
The appalling mortality produced by
this disease in Central Africa naturally
caused the greatest anxiety to his
Majesty’s Government, which had but
just completed the railway from the
East Coast to the shores of lake Vic
toria Nyanza, and had established a
prosperous and happy rule in that
densely populated region. The official
medical men on the spot, though
capable and experienced practitioners,
were unable to cope with this new
and virulent outbreak. The Foreign
Office, having no imperial board of
hygiene and medical administration to
apply to in this country, sought the
assistance of the Royal Society of
London.
A committee of that society had
already undertaken the study of
malaria at the request of the Secre
tary of State for the Colonies, and
had sent out young medical men as a
commission to make certain enquiries
and experiments on that subject and
report to the committee in London.
The sleeping sickness enquiry was un
dertaken by the same committee; but
unfortunately very insufficient funds
were placed at its disposal. When
the South African cattle-owners found
their herds threatened twelve years
carried out not only by British observers and
officials, but also by French, German, and
other investigators. A really adequate effort
is being made to deal with the disease.J
1 [A treatment by means of injections of
antimony (potassium tartar emetic) into the
blood has been used, as well as other similar
methods. A very few cases (not a dozen) are
on record of permanent recovery under such
treatment.]
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
ago by a new form of mortal disease—
the East Coast fever ”—the South
African Government accepted the offer
of Dr. Robert Koch, of Berlin, to
undertake the investigation of the
disease and the discovery, if possible,
of a remedy, for the sum of £10,000.
No such sum was at the disposal of
the committee of the Royal Society.
They were obliged to send out young
and enterprising medical men, practi
cally without pay or reward, to see
what they could do in the way of
determining the cause of, and, if pos
sible, the remedy for, the terrible
sleeping sickness raging in Uganda
and destroying daily hundreds of
British subjects. The committee set
to work in the summer of 1902, and
sent out Drs. Low, Christy, and
Castellani to Entebbe, the capital of
Uganda.
The guesses as to the cause and
nature of sleeping sickness at the time
when this commission set forth were
very various. Some highly capable
medical authorities held that it was
due to poisonous food. The root of
the manioc, on which the natives feed,
was supposed to become infected by
some poison-producing ferment.
A
more generally received opinion was
that it was caused hy a specific bac
terium which invades the tissues of
the brain and spinal cord. Several
totally different micro-organisms of
this sort had been described with
equal confidence by Erench and Por
tuguese investigators as the cause of
the sleeping sickness studied by them
in West Africa or on the Congo. Sir
Patrick Manson, the head of the British
Colonial medical service, an authority
of great experience in tropical disease,
97
had put forward the suggestion that
the sleeping sickness was due to the
infection of the patient by a minute
thread-worm (allied to the “ vinegar
eel,” and one of a great class of para
sites) which he had discovered in the
blood of negroes, and had named
Filaria perstans.
The occurrence of minute worms
(true worms, neither unicellular plants
nor protozoa) in the blood of man was
first made known by Dr. Timothy
Lewis, who described the Filaria
sanguinis hominis, as well as some
other most important blood-parasites,
some years ago (1878), when officially
engaged in an enquiry into the cause
of cholera in Calcutta. Subsequently,
in China, Manson found that these
little blood-worms were sucked up by
mosquitoes when gorging themselves
on the blood of a patient. It is,
indeed, difficult to imagine how they
should escape passing into the mosquito
with the blood. Manson suggested
that the minute worms (known to be
the embryos of a worm which, when
adult, is about two inches long) are
obliged to pass through a mosquito in
order to accomplish their development;
but no proof of this suggestion has
ever been made. We know by abun
dant and repeated demonstration and
experiment that another blood-parasite
—the malaria parasite—must pass
through a mosquito, in whose body it
develops, and by which it is carried to
a new victim of infection. This was
suspected long ago by both peasants
and doctors, and experimentally proved
by Ross; but no such proof has been
given of the relation of Lewis’s blood
worm to a mosquito. The so-called
Filaria perstans, discovered by Manson
�98
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
in the blood of negroes, appears to be
very different from the Filaria san
guinis hominis of Lewis. It is not
known how it gets into the blood ; and
it is very astonishing, and much to be
regretted, that none of the medical
men who have had it under observa
tion have given a proper anatomical
account of it. It appears that this
worm is very common in the blood of
negroes in tropical Africa; and as it
was found in several cases in the
blood of individuals attacked by sleep
ing sickness, Sir Patrick Manson was
justified in entertaining the view that
this parasite was the cause of the
disease.
One of the first results obtained by
the commission sent by the Royal
Society committee to Uganda was the
proof—which had, indeed, been already
furnished by the resident medical
officers of the Uganda Protectorate—
that Filaria perstans, though remark
ably abundant in the blood of the
negroes of Uganda, can have nothing
to do with sleeping sickness, since,
though it often occurs in persons
attacked with that disease, it also
exists in districts where sleeping sick
ness is unknown; and, further, many
cases of sleeping sickness have been
observed in which no Filaria perstans
has been discovered in the blood or
other parts of the body.
While Drs. Low and Christy occu
pied themselves with settling this
question as to the connection of Filaria
perstans with the disease and carried
out a careful study of its clinical
aspects, Dr. Castellani examined the
brain and spinal cord of those who
died from sleeping sickness, for bac
teria. He found again and again an
extremely minute globular vegetable
parasite—of the kind known as strep
tococcus—which he concluded to be
the cause of the disease, although he
had not produced the disease experi
mentally by inoculating an animal
with this microbe.
In the early part of 1903 these were
the only results obtained by some six
months’ work of the medical men sent
out by the Royal Society’s committee;
and it was felt that something more
must be done. The investigation of
a disease hitherto little known and
studied is one of the most difficult
tasks in the world, requiring the
highest scientific qualities.
Any
serious attempt to deal with the
sleeping sickness in Uganda would,
it was at length recognised, require
the dispatch of a man of proved
capacity and experience, provided
with full powers and with trained
men as his assistants. No such men
are provided by the public service of
the British Empire. To detach a
medical man of recognised insight and
experimental skill from his practice—
even were it possible to find one
specially qualified for the present
enquiry—would involve the payment
of a large fee, which neither the Royal
Society nor the Foreign Office could
command.
What, then, was to be done ? For
tunately there was one man in the
public service, recently appointed to
be one of the chiefs of the educational
arrangements of the Army Medical
Department, who had shown himself
to be especially gifted in the investi
gation of obscure diseases. This was
Colonel David Bruce, F.R.S., who
some fifteen years ago established the
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
existence of Malta fever as an inde
pendent disease by his clinical obser
vations and by the isolation and
cultivation of the parasitic bacterium
causing it; and who, further, when
employed by the governor of Zululand
a few years later (1895) to investigate
the celebrated tsetze-fly disease of South
Africa, had discovered, contrary to the
assertions and prejudices of a large
number of African sportsmen and
explorers, that the horse and cattle
disease known as nagana or tsetze-fly
disease was due to the presence in the
blood of the affected animals of a
peculiar corkscrew-like animal para
site, the Trypanosoma Brucei. This
is carried by the bite of the tsetze fly
from the blood of wild game, such as
buffalo and antelope, where it does no
harm, to the blood of domesticated
animals, in which it multiplies and
proves to be the source of a deadly
poison causing death in a few weeks.
The experiments by which Colonel
Bruce demonstrated this relationship
of tsetze fly, trypanosome parasite,
wild big game, and domesticated
animals were universally regarded as
masterly, both in conception and
execution, and absolutely conclusive.
The committee of the Royal Society
came to the conclusion that the thing
to be done was to get Colonel Bruce
to consent to proceed to Uganda, and
to recommend the Foreign Office to
obtain from the War Office the
temporary detachment of Colonel
Bruce for this service. Accordingly
Colonel Bruce arrived in Uganda in
the middle of March, 1903. Dr. Low
and Dr. Christy had already departed,
but Dr. Castellani was still at Entebbe
engaged in the study of his strepto
99
coccus. He mentioned to Colonel
Bruce on his arrival that he had on
more than one occasion seen a try
panosome in the cerebro-spinal fluid
of negroes suffering from sleeping
sickness; but, inasmuch as Dutton
on the West Coast and Hodges in
Uganda had described a trypanosome
as an occasional parasite in human
blood, he had not considered its
occurrence in sleeping-sickness patients
as of any more significance than is the
occurrence of Filaria perstans. Cas
tellani regarded the trypanosome, like
the filaria, as a mere accidental con
comitant of sleeping sickness, the
cause of which he considered to be
the bacterial streptococcus which he
had so frequently found to be present.
Naturally enough, Bruce was im
pressed by the fact that trypanosomes,
of the deadly nature of which he had
had ample experience, had been found,
even once, in the cerebro-spinal fluid
of sleeping-sickness patients; and he
immediately set to work to make a
thorough search for this parasite in
all the cases of sleeping sickness then
under observation at Entebbe. He
generously allowed Castellani to take
part in the investigation, which
resulted in the immediate discovery
of the trypanosome in the cerebro
spinal fluid of twenty cases, out of
thirty - four examined, of negroes
afflicted with the disease; whilst in
twelve negroes free from sleeping
sickness the trypanosome could not
be found in the cerebro-spinal fluid.
Castellani returned to Europe three
weeks after Bruce’s experiments were
commenced, and announced the dis
covery.
Bruce continued his work in Uganda
�100
THE SLEEPING- SICKNESS
until the end of August, 1903, having
been joined there by Colonel Greig of
the Indian Army, who continued the
work of the Royal Society’s com
mission after Bruce left. Other
valuable observations were carried
out by various medical men officially
connected with the Uganda Protec
torate. Bruce soon showed that in
every case of sleeping sickness, when
examined with sufficient care, the
trypanosome parasite is found to be
present in the cerebro-spinal fluid.
He also showed that it was absent from
that fluid in all negroes examined who
were not afflicted with the disease,
but made the very important discovery
that the trypanosome is present in the
blood (not the cerebro-spinal fluid) of
twenty-eight per cent, of the popula
tion in those areas where sleeping
sickness occurs, the persons thus
affected having none of the symptoms
of sleeping sickness, but being either
perfectly healthy or merely troubled
with a little occasional fever. It was
found in these cases, even in some
Europeans, that the earlier presence
of the trypanosome in the blood was
followed by its entry into the cerebro
spinal lymphatics, and by the fatal
development of sleeping sickness.
As already indicated, it was found
by Bruce, on recording the cases of
sleeping sickness brought into or
reported in Entebbe, that there were
certain “ sleeping-sickness areas ” and
other areas free from sleeping sickness.
The theory now took shape in Bruce’s
mind that the trypanosome first gets
into the blood, and then, after a time,
makes its way into the cerebro-spinal
system, only then producing its deadly
symptoms. Very generally, when once
in the blood, the trypanosome multi
plies itself, and sooner or later—
apparently, in some cases, evBn after
two or three years—gets into the
cerebro-spinal fluid. It is probable
that it may sometimes be destroyed
by natural processes in the human
body before this final stage is reached;
and thus the infected person may
recover and escape the deadly phase
of the disease. But nothing certain is
known, as yet, on this head. It was
shown that the trypanosome is found
alive and in large quantity in the
lymphatic glands, especially those in
the region of the neck, in infected
persons. These glands were known
to be enlarged in persons suffering
from the disease.
Colonel Bruce’s next step was to
ascertain the mode in which the
trypanosome is introduced into the
blood. Naturally he looked for a
kind of tsetze fly, such as carries the
trypanosome in the nagana disease of
horses and cattle already studied by
him in Zululand. It is a fact that
the Glossina morsitans and Glossina
pallidipes, which are the tsetze flies
of the “ fly districts ” where nagana
disease is rife, are unknown *in Central
or Western Africa; and also it is a
fact that no tsetze fly had been
observed in the neighbourhood of the
Victoria Nyanza when Colonel Bruce
began his enquiries. He employed,
through the good-will of the native
chiefs and rulers, a large number of
natives to collect flies throughout the
country forming a belt of twenty or
thirty miles around the north of the
lake. Many thousands of flies were
thus brought in, and the localities
from which they came carefully noted.
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
101
Among these flies Colonel Bruce were ascertained to be liable to
recognised a tsetze fly ; and when the infection of the sleeping-sick
these collections were received at the ness trypanosome when this was
Natural History Museum in London, introduced by means of injection
it was at once determined by Mr. through a syringe. Such monkeys
Austen, the assistant in charge of the were found to develop the chief
collections of Diptera (or two-winged symptoms of sleeping sickness, and
flies), that the Uganda tsetze fly was ultimately died of the disease, their
not the same species as that of Zulu- cerebro-spinal fluid being invaded by
land and the. fly country, but a distinct the parasites. Accordingly it was
species previously known only on the possible to use monkeys as test
West Coast and the Congo basin, and animals. It was found by Colonel
described by the name Glossina pat- Bruce that tsetze flies (Glossina pal
palis. The story thus developed pates) which had been made to bite
itself : the trypanosome of sleeping infected negroes could carry the infec
sickness is probably carried by this tion to the monkeys; and it was also
West Coast tsetze fly just as the found that even when a number of
trypanosome of nagana is carried in tsetze flies not specially prepared
the south-east of Africa by the Glossina were allowed to bite a monkey, the
morsitans and pallidipes, the regular latter eventually developed the try
panosome in its blood and cerebro
and original “ tsetze ” flies.
Sleeping sickness thus presented spinal fluid, thus showing that the
itself as a special kind of human tsetze flies, as naturally occurring in
tsetze-fly disease. To test this hypo the country around Entebbe, contain,
thesis, Colonel Bruce pursued two many of them, the trypanosome ready
very important and distinct lines of to pass from the fly to a human or
enquiry. In the first place, he found simian victim, when casually bitten
that those places oh his map which by the fly.
Experiments such as these of infec
were marked as “ sleeping-sickness
areas ” were precisely those places tion by the fly, and the use of monkeys
from which the collected flies included in the research, require very great care ;
specimens of tsetze fly, whilst he and it was quite reasonable to ask
found that there were no tsetze flies that they should be repeated and
in the collections of flies brought in most carefully checked before they
by the natives from the regions where were considered as demonstrative and
absolutely certain. It may now be
there was no sleeping sickness.
His second test inquiry consisted in considered as practically certain that
ascertaining whether the tsetze flies of the sleeping sickness is due to the
Uganda are actually found, experi presence in the cerebro-spinal fluid of
mentally, to be capable of carrying quantities of a minute parasite, the
the trypanosome from one infected Trypanosoma Gambiense, which is
person to another. Bor this purpose carried from man to man by the
it was necessary to make use of palpalis tsetze fly, which sucks it up
monkeys, certain species of which I from the blood of an infected individual
�102
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
and conveys it to previously uninfected gnat, in the interior of which it/iultiindividuals. The natives in Uganda1 plies by a process of sexual conjugation.
lie about and sleep under the shade of At the same time the reader who is
trees where the tsetze flies are espe interested in sleeping sickness will
cially abundant; and they are quite probably desire to know more about
indifferent to the bites of flies of one the nature of the tsetze flies and some
kind and another.
further details as to the parasite spoken
It is the dislike to the mere touch of as trypanosome.
/
of a fly, still more to its bite, which
The tsetze flies form a genus called
has protected Europeans almost en by Wiedemann Lin 1830) \ Grlossina.”
tirely from the sleeping sickness. They are only found in Africa; and
Unfortunately there is no immunity some seven species1 in all ar(> known.
for Europeans in the matter; and the *They are little bigger than a common
existence of many cases of white house-fly, and much like it it colour
people infected with the trypanosome, (Fig. 48). They differ :n appearance
who have ultimately died in England from the house-fly in the fact that the
or elsewhere in Europe from sleeping wings, when the insect is at rest, are
sickness contracted through the bite parallel to one another, and slightly
of a fly in Africa, is abundant proof overlap in the middle line, instead of
that there is not, as has been supposed, being to a small extent divergent at
any special freedom from the disease their free extremities. The bite, like
for white people.1
that of all flies, is rather a stab than
The foregoing description of the a bite, and is effected by a beak-like
nature and mode of the infection of process of the head, the blood of the
sleeping sickness will not cause any animal pricked in this way being
astonishment to the layman of the drawn into the fly’s mouth by a
present day who knows anything of sucking action of the gullet. The
recent medical science. We are all tsetze flies appear to be especially
familiar with the danger of fly-bites, greedy, and are said to gorge them
even in this country, where deadly selves to such an extent that the
bacteria are occasionally carried by blood taken in from one animal over
biting flies, such as the horse-flies, flows the gullet, and so contaminates
into the human subject; and nowadays the wound inflicted by the fly on the
everyone is more or less familiar with next animal it visits. It is at the
the discovery of the minute blood present moment assumed very generally
parasite which causes malaria or ague that this is the way in which infection
and is carried by a particular kind of is produced. But it is not at all
1 Only last year (1905) Lieut. Tulloch, of improbable that the trypanosome
the Army Medical Department, who with undergoes some kind of multiplication
Professor Minchin was engaged in carrying
on further researches for the Royal Society and change of form when sucked into
on the sleeping sickness at Entebbe in the tsetze fly, as happens in the case
Uganda, became infected by the trypano
some, probably through an unobserved bite
by a tsetze fly, and died of the disease soon
1 [Now (1912) eleven species are distin
after his return to England.
,guished.}
�THE SLEEPING- SICKNESS
of the malaria parasite when swallowed
by the Anopheles gnat. No such change
has yet been discovered in regard to
the trypanosome of sleeping sickness;
but it cannot be said that the matter
has been exhaustively studied, or that
a negative conclusion is justified.1
As to the parasite itself—the trypa
nosome—a long and very interesting
story has now to be told. The first
blood-parasite ever made known to
naturalists and medical men was that
to which Gruby, in 1843, gave the
name Trypanosoma sanguinis.
He
found it in the blood of the common
frog. We have here reproduced a
Fig.
48.
Tsetze flies—Glossina morsitans—magnified two
diameters. This is the “fly” of the nagana or
horse and cattle disease of South Africa. The
Glossina palpalis, which carries the Trypanosoma
Gambiense, causing sleeping sickness, is very closely
similar to it in appearance.
figure of this original trypanosome
(fig. 49). Similar parasites had been
seen, but not named, in the blood of
fishes. These trypanosomes are all
1 Professor Minchiu investigated this subject
during 1905 in Uganda, whither he went on
behalf of the Tropical Diseases Committee of
the Royal Society. He did not discover
anything corresponding to the development
of the malarial parasite in the gnat, but his
investigations are not yet brought to a con
clusion (December, 1906). [Later investi
gations by French and German observers
—especially those of Kleiner—have recently
demonstrated that there is such a phase of
development and multiplication of the try
panosome of sleeping sickness in the body of
the tsetze fly.]
103
very minute and of a somewhat elon
gated form, a fair average length being
one thousandth of an inch. They are
simple protoplasmic animals, consist
ing of one single nucleated corpuscle.
The protoplasm is drawn out at one
end of the creature into a motile,
undulating thread, and from the point
where this joins the body a mem
branous undulating crest extends along
the greater part of the animal’s length.
There is no mouth, nutrition being
effected by the imbibition of soluble
nutrient matter.
After a long interval Gruby’s trypa
nosome was re-discovered in 1871; and
then several kinds were described in
the blood of tortoises, fishes, and birds.
In 1878 Dr. Timothy Lewis found a
parasite in the blood of rats, at first in
India, and subsequently in the common
rats of London sewers. This parasite
resembles a trypanosome in many
respects (Fig. 46a), but was very pro
perly given a distinct name by Savile
Kent, who called it “ Herpetomonas.”
This name has, however, been dropped;
and the rat’s-blood parasite is spoken
of as a trypanosome. It is the Trypa
nosoma Lewisii, and was the first of
these trypanosomes to be found in the
blood of a mammalian animal. The
Trypanosoma Lewisii of the rat’s blood
seems to do no harm to the rat, in
which it swarms, multiplying itself by
longitudinal fission; nor is it at pre
sent known to produce any trouble in
other animals when transferred to
their blood. Similarly, the frog’s try
panosome seems to exist innocently in
the frog’s blood.
The next trypanosome discovered
(1880) was, however, found in the
blood of camels, horses, and cattle
�104
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
suffering from a deadly disease known
in India by the name “ surra.” It is
called Trypanosoma Evansii, after the
observer who detected it. Trypano
somes now began to get a bad name,
for the next was discovered in animals
afflicted by a North African disease
known to French veterinaries as
“dourine.”
This trypanosome was
called T. equiperdum.
A
injuring them, just as the rat’s trypa
nosome inhabits the rat’s blood with
out producing disease; and that it is
only when the trypanosome is carried
from these natural wild “hosts” to
domesticated animals introduced by
man, such as horses, asses, cattle, and
dogs, that disease results. The Wild
animals are “ immune ” to Bruce’s
trypanosome; the introduced animals
Fig. 49.
The earliest discovered Trypanosome, described by Gruby, in 1843, as Trypanosoma sanguinis, and
It was^not 'no^edSin
Wh°
figure of it in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science in that year.
A little later—namely, in the year
1895—came Bruce’s discovery of a try
panosome associated with a tsetze fly
in the production of the terrible nagana
disease of the “fly-belts” of South
Africa, which renders whole territories
impassable for horses or cattle (Fig.
46b). The remarkable and important
observation was made by Bruce that
this trypanosome (known as T. Brucei)
inhabits the blood of big game without
are poisoned by the products of its
growth and fissile multiplication in
their blood.
Since Bruce’s researches on nagana,
a trypanosome, T. equinum (Fig. 46d),
has been discovered in the horse
ranches of South America, where it
causes deadly disease, the mal de
caderas, among the collected .horses •
and a curiously large-sized trypano
some has been found by Theiler in the
�105
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
blood of cattle in the Transvaal.1
Down to a recent date no trypano
some Jiad been found in the blood of
man ; and indeed it is almost certain
that none of the kinds hitherto men
tioned can survive in his blood. But
in 1902 Dutton discovered a trypano
some in the blood of a West African
patient; and a few other cases were
noted. This trypanosome of human
blood was called by Dutton T. Gambiense. It was not found to be con
nected with any serious symptoms, a
little fever being the only disturbance
noted. It now, however, appears that
this trypanosome in the blood is the
preliminary stage of the infection
which ends in sleeping sickness ; and,
as we have seen, in a population seri
ously attacked by sleeping sickness, as
is that of Uganda, as many as 28 per
cent, of the people have trypanosomes
in their blood.
There is no ground at present known
for distinguishing Dutton’s T. Gambiense of human blood from that which
Bruce has found to be so terribly
abundant in Uganda, and to be the
cause of sleeping sickness. Indeed,
all the trypanosomes of the blood of
the larger mammalia are singularly
alike in appearance; and the figure
which is here given (Eig. 50) of the
trypanosome of sleeping sickness (I7.
Gambiense) might, with very slight
modification, serve to represent the T.
Evansii of surra disease, the T. Brucei
1 [The number of kinds of trypanosome
known has been greatly increased during the
period 1906-1911, and diseases produced
by them have been described. Only one
additional kind producing a disease in man has
been discovered—namely, in Brazil, where it is
carried into the human body by the bite of
an enormous species of bug which infests the
dwellings of country-folk.]
of nagana disease, or the T. equinum of
the South American mol de caderas.
A most characteristic feature, which
has been made out by the careful study
of those trypanosomes by means of
colouring reagents and very high
powers of the microscope, is that,
whilst there is a large granular nucleus,
there is also a small body at the
anterior end of the animalcule which
readily stains, and is placed at the end
of the root (so to speak) of the vibratile flagellum or free thread. This
smaller nucleus has been variously
Fig.
50.
Trypanosoma Gambiense, from the blood of men
suffering from the early symptoms of sleeping
sickness. A, after Bruce and Navarro; B, after
CasteUani. They show a large oval nucleus (drawn
as a black mass), and a small black ” micronucleus,”
or “ blepharoplast ” in front.
called the “micronucleus,” the “ centrosome,” and the “ blepharoplast.”
It is identical with a structure simi
larly placed in non-parasitic micro
scopic animals to which Trypanosoma
is undoubtedly related. We find it in
the phosphorescent noctiluea of our
seas, and in various animalcules called
“ Elagellata.”
The creature drawn in our Eig. 50 is,
then, the typical trypanosome. It is
this which the medical investigator
looks for in his human or animal
patients; it is this which he has
regarded as the sign and proof of
�106
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
infection. Experiments have shown
that, though so much alike in appear
ance in the different diseases we have
named, yet each trypanosome has its
own properties. Human blood-serum
is poisonous to one and not to another;
an animal immune to one is not
immune to another. At present ,no
treatment has been discovered which
will destroy the parasites when once
they have effected a lodgment, or act
as an antidote to the poison which they
produce in the infected animal or man.1
The Trypanosome (T. eauiperdum) of the
disease called “Dourine,” as seen alive in the
blood of a rat, eight days ofter inoculation.
a, the actively -wriggling corkscrew-like para
sites; b, the blood-corpuscles of the rat. This
figure, of comparatively low magnification, gives
an indication of the relative size of the parasites
and the blood corpuscles.
The blood-corpuscles are about j o cnrth of an
inch each in diameter.
always be remembered that we are
liable to confuse two different con-*1
ditions under this one term.
An
animal may be said to be immune to
a blood-parasite because that parasite
is actually unable to live in its blood.
On the other hand, an animal is often
said to be immune to a parasite when
the parasite can and does flourish in its
blood or tissues, but produces no poi
sonous effect. A more precise nomen
clature would describe the attacked
organism in the first case as “ repel
lent,” for it repels the parasite alto
gether; in the secondcaseas “tolerant,”
for it tolerates the presence and mul
tiplication of the parasite without
suffering by it.
We have yet to learn a good deal
more as to the repulsion and the tole
ration of the trypanosome parasites
by mammals and man. Still more
have we to learn about the life-history
of the trypanosome. At the moment
of writing absolutely nothing has been
ascertained as to the life-history of the
trypanosomes of mammalian blood
except that they multiply in the blood
by longitudinal fission.1 Our ignorance
about them is all the more serious
since other trypanosomes, discovered
by Danilewsky in birds, have been
studied, and have been shown to go
through the most varied phases of
multiplication and change of size and
shape, including a process of sexual
fertilisation like that of the malaria
But the fact that in some cases an
animal may become immune to the
attack of the parasite which usually is
deadly to its kind gives hope of an
eventual curative treatment for trypa
nosome infection; as does also the fact
that the serum of some animals acts
2 [Since the above was written there has
as a poison to trypanosomes which
been very great activity in microscopic re
flourish in other animals.
searches on this matter, and a great deal of
With regard to immunity, it must valuable knowledge has been obtained as to
1 [Though the injection of certain prepara
tions of arsenic, of antimony, and of mercury
have in a few cases been followed by recovery.)
the history of several mammalian trypano
somes and their multiplication in the bodies
of fleas, lice, and bugs, by which they are
carried from one victim to another.)
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
parasite, to which, indeed, it now seems
certain the trypanosomes are very
closely allied.
It is to; Dr. Schaudinn1 that we owe
a knowledge of some most extraordinary and important facts with regard
to the trypanosomes parasitic in the
blood of the little stone-owl of
southern Europe (Athene noctua).
These facts are so remarkable that,
Were Dr. Schaudinn not known as a
very competent investigator of micro
scopic organisms, we should hesitate to
accept them as true. Supposing as is
107
this chapter, the British Government
has no staff of public servants trained
to deal with the world-wide problems
of sanitation and disease which neces
sarily come with increasing frequency
before the puzzled administrators of
our scattered Empire. There is no
provision for the study of the nature
and history of blood-parasites in this
country—that is to say, no provision of
laboratories with the very ablest and
exceptionally-gifted investigators at
their head.1 We play with the pro
vision of an adequate army, officers,
\
Fig. 53.
Fin. 82.
5%.—Trypanosoma Ziemanni, from the gut of the gnat (Oulex), having been sucked in with the
btood of the owl (.Athene noctud). A, fertilised vermiform stage. B, multiplication of nucleus. C,
elongation and coiling, with increase of nuclei (after Schauamn).
frriTn
rniledformof
Fig. 53.—Minute neutral Trypanosomes in the gut of the gnat liberated fiom the coiled toim oi
Fig. 52, C (after Schaudinn).
Fig.
/not improbable, that similar facts can
be shown in regard to the trypano
somes of mammalian blood, the conclu
sions which our medical investigators
have based upon a very limited know
ledge of the form and life-history of
the trypanosomes occurring in diseases
such as sleeping sickness, surra, and
Bagana are likely to be gravely modified,
and practical issues of an unexpected
kind will be involved.
As has already been pointed out in
and equipment to fight disease which
annually destroys hundreds of thou
sands of our people, much as barbarous
1 Since this was written a professorship of
Protozoology has, with the assistance of the
Colonial Office, been established in the Uni
versity of London. This is a first step towards
a recognition of the duty of the State in this
matter. [Professor Minchin, F.R.S., who
has been appointed to this post, has made
important discoveries, in consequence, by .his
study of the trypasonome of sleeping sick
ness in Uganda, and of the relation of the
rat’s trypasonome to its flea. He has also
been to Rovigno and revised Schaudinn’s
observations on the parasites of the little
1 Dr. Schaudinn died in 1906. He was only owl, confirming some and rejecting others of
Schaudinn’s results.J
35 years of age.
�108
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
States or bankrupt European kingdoms
play with the provision of an ordinary
army and navy. Their forces exist on
paper, or even in fact, but have no
ammunition, no officers, and no infor
mation, and there is no pay for the
soldiers or sailors. Dr. Schaudinn, on
the other hand, carried on his researches
as an officer of the German Imperial
Health Bureau of Berlin; and the
F.
Fig. 54.
A, B, C, D, elongated spiral forms of Try
panosoma Ziemanni (some intertwined) developed
from those of Fig. 53—showing transverse division,
nucleus, and blepharoplast.
E, F, pear-shaped forms resulting from the
contraction of forms like A; G, a cluster of very
minute individuals.
These forms are observed in the gnat and also
in the blood of the owl, into which they pass when
the gnat bites that bird, and were supposed by
Schaudinn to give rise to the large male and female
trypanosomes seen in Fig. 55 (after Schaudinn)
[though this conclusion is not at the present
moment (1911) accepted].
account of them was published in the
official Report of that important depart
ment of the German Imperial Adminis
trative Service three years ago.
It is not possible here to give a full
report on Dr. Schaudinn’s work ; but
it appears that he has studied two
distinct species of trypanosome, both
occurring side by side in the blood of
the little stone-owl, and already seen
but incompletely studied by Danilewsky
and Ziemann. The second of the two
species of trypanosome is in some
respects the more remarkable. Schau
dinn calls it Trypanosoma Ei&manni;
and from the figures which are here
given (Figs. 4, 5, 6, and 7), copied from
his article, with the explanations below
the figures, the reader will at once see
what an extraordinary range of form
and mode of multiplication is presented
by this one species of trypanosome.
Space will not permit us to comment
on these various phases beyond noting
how assuredly such forms would
have escaped recognition as belong
ing to the trypanosome history if
seen, before Dr. Schaudinn’s memoir
was printed, by any of our medical
commissioners blindly exploring round
about the diseases caused by trypano
somes in man and mammals.
One very astonishing and revolution
ary opinion announced by Schaudinn
we must, however, especially point out.
Medical men have long been acquainted
with the spirillum, or spiral threads,
discovered by Obermeyer in the blood
of patients suffering from the relapsing
fever of eastern Europe. These were
universally and without question
regarded as Bacteria (vegetable organ
isms), and referred to the genus
“ Spirochaeta ” of Ehrenberg. They
were called Spiro chata Obermeieri ;
and relapsing fever was held to be a
typical case of a bacterial infection
of the blood. It is now held by
Schaudinn that the blood - parasite
Spirochaeta is a phase of a trypano
some (Fig. 54); that it has a large
nucleus and a micronucleus or ble
pharoplast, neither of which is present
in the spiral Bacteria; and, further,
that it alters its shape, contracting so
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
as to present the form of minute oval
or pear-shaped bodies, each provided
with a larger and a smaller nucleus
(Fig. 54, E, F). These oval bodies
are often engulfed by the colourless
corpuscles (phagocytes) of the blood;
and it is in the highest degree probable
that such phases of the growth of a
trypanosome have been observed in
some tropical diseases without their
109
parasites, and must lead to important
discoveries in regard to diseases caused
by them in mammals and in man.
The facts that wild game serve as a
tolerant reservoir of trypanosomes for
the infection of domesticated animals
by the intermediary of the tsetze fly,
and that native children in malarial
regions act the same part for the
malarial parasite and mosquito, suggest
Fig. 55.
Trynanosoma Ziemanni, from the blood of the little owl. The stages shown in Figs. 52-54 are
snown m rigs, oz-oa.a-c
passed inside the gnat. The spiral and pear-shaped bodies of Fig. 54 pass from the gnat s proboscis into
the blood of the little owl, and grow there into the large forms here figured. A, B, and C are females,
destined to be fertilised by spermatozoa (see Fig. 21) when swallowed by a gnat. D and B are male
trypanosomes, which will give rise each to eight fertilising individuals or spermatozoa—as shown m
Fig. 56—when swallowed by a gnat.
relation to the spiral forms being
suspected.
The corpuscles lately
described by Leishman, in cases of
a peculiar Indian fever, are very
probably of this nature, as are also
similar bodies recently described in
Delhi sore. On the whole, it may
safely be said that the researches of
Dr. Schaudinn have widely modified
our conceptions as to these blood-
very strongly that some tolerant reser
voir of the sleeping-sickness trypano
some may exist in the shape of a
hitherto unsuspected mammal, bird,
or insect. The investigation of that
hypothesis and the discovery of the
reproductive and secondary forms of
the mammalian trypanosomes are the
matters which now most urgently call
for the efforts of capable medical
�110
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
officers.1 But we must not be san
guine of rapid progress, since men
of the scientific quality needful for
pursuing these enquiries are not
numerous; and those who exist are
not endowed with private fortunes, as
a rule. At the same time no suffi
ciently serious attempt is made by the
British Government to take such men
into its pay, or to provide for the
training and selection of such officers.2
The relations of parasites to the
Fig. 56.
Mule Trypanosoma Ziemanni, giving rise by
nuclear division to eight spermatozoa or micro
gametes. From the stomach of the gnat (Culex).
Each of these penetrates and fuses with the
substance of a female trypanosome, swallowed at
the same time or already taken in by the gnat.
The fertilised animalcule is the vermiform motile
stage of Fig. 52, A; and so we return to the startingpoint of the cycle (after Sohaudinri).
organisms upon or in which they are
parasitic, and the relation of Man,
once entered on the first steps of his
career of civilisation, to the world of
parasites, form one of the most
1 [The life-history of the insects which
carry disease-producing trypanosomes is also
most important, and often difficult to ascer
tain. It is not yet known what insect carries
the parasites which produce horse-diseases,
and it is now thought probable that other
flies than Glossina may in some districts
carry the trypanosome of sleeping sickness.]
2 gee footnote on p. 107.
instructive and fascinating chapters
of natural history. It cannot be fully
written yet, but already some of the
conclusions to which the student is
led in examining this subject have
far-reaching importance and touch
upon great general principles in an
unexpected manner.
Before the arrival of Man—the
would-be controller, the disturber of
Nature — the adjustment of living
things to their surrounding conditions
and to one another has a certain
appearance of perfection. Natural
selection and the survival of the
fittest in the struggle for existence
lead to the production of a degree of
efficiency and harmonious interaction
of the units of the living y-orld which,
being based on the inexorable destruc
tion of what is inadequate and
inharmonious as soon as it appears,
result in a smooth and orderly working
of the great machine, and the con
tinuance by heredity of efficiency and
a high degree of individual perfection.
Parasites, whether microscopic or
of larger size, are not, in such circum
stances, the cause of widespread disease
or suffering. The weakly members of
a species may be destroyed by parasites,
as others are destroyed by beasts of
prey; but the general community of
the species, thus weeded, is benefited
by the operation. In the natural
world the inhabitants of areas bounded
by sea, mountain, and river become
adjusted to one another ; and a balance
is established. The only disturbing
factors are exceptional seasons, un
usual cold, wet, or drought. Such
recurrent factors may from time to
time increase the number of the
weakly who are unable to cope witlM
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
the invasions of minute destructive
parasites, and so reduce, even to
extermination, the kinds of animals or
plants especially susceptible to such
influences. But anything like the
recurring epidemic diseases of parasitic
origin with which civilised man is
unhappily familiar seems to be due
either to his own restless and ignorant
activity or, in his absence, to great
and probably somewhat sudden geo
logical changes—changes of the con
nections, and therefore communica
tions, of great land areas.
It is abundantly evident that animals
or plants which have, by long seons
of selection and adaptation, become
adjusted to the parasites and the
climatic conditions and the general
company (so to speak) of one con
tinent may be totally unfit to cope
with those of another; just as the
Martian giants of Mr. H. G. Wells,
though marvels of offensive and defen
sive development, were helpless in the
presence of mundane putrefactive bac
teria, and were rapidly and surely
destroyed by them. Accordingly, it is
not improbable that such geological
changes as the junction of the North
and South American continents, of
North and South Africa, and of various
large islands and neighbouring con
tinents, have, in ages before the advent
of man, led to the development of
disastrous epidemics. It is not a
far-fetched hypothesis that the dis
appearance of the whole equine race
from the American continent just
before or coincidently with the advent
of man—a region where horses of all
kinds had existed in greater variety
than in any other part of the world—
is due to the sudden introduction, by
111
means of some geological change, of a
deadly parasite which spread as an
epidemic and extinguished the entire
horse population.
Whatever may have happened in
past geological epochs, by force of
great changes in the connections of
land-surfaces which brought the adap
tations of one continent into con
tact with the parasites of another,
it is quite certain that Man, proud
Man, ever since he has learnt to build
a ship, and even before that, when he
made up his mind to march aimlessly
across continents till he could go no
further, has played havoc with himself
and all sorts of his fellow-beings by
mixing up the products of one area
with those of another. Nowhere has
Man allowed himself—let alone other
animals or even plants—to exist in
fixed local conditions to which he or
they have become adjusted. With
ceaseless restlessness he has introduced
men and beasts and plants from one
land to another. He has constantly
migrated, with his herds and his horses,
from continent to continent. Parasites,
in themselves beneficent purifiers of
the race, have been thus converted
into terrible scourges and the chronic
agents of disease. Europeans are
decimated by the locally innocuous
parasites of Africa; the South Sea
islanders are exterminated by the com
paratively harmless measles of Europe.
A striking example of the disasters
brought about by Man’s blind dealings
with Nature—disasters which can and
will hereafter be avoided by the aid of
science—is to be found in the history
of the insect phylloxera and the vine.
In America th« vine had become
adjusted to the phylloxera larvae, so
�112
TSE SLEEPING SICKNESS
that when they nibbled its roots the
American vine threw out new root
shoots, and was none the worse for
the little visitor. Man in his blunder
ing way introduced the American vine,
and with it the phylloxera, to Europe;
and in three years half the vines in
France and Italy were destroyed by
the phylloxera, because the European
vines had not been bred in association
with this little pest, and had not
acquired the simple adjusting faculty
of throwing out new shoots.
But it is not only by his reckless
mixing up of incompatibles from all
parts of the globe that the unscientific
man has risked the conversion of
paradise into a desert. In his greedy
efforts to produce large quantities of
animals and plaqts convenient for his
purposes, and in his eagerness to mass
and organise his own race for defence
and conquest, man has accumulated
unnatural swarms of one species in
field and ranch and unnatural crowds
of his own kind in towns and fortresses.
Such undiluted masses of one organism
serve as a ready field for the propaga
tion of previously rare and unimportant
parasites from individual to individual.
Human epidemic diseases, as well as
those of cattle and crops, are largely
due to this unguarded action of the
unscientific man.
A good instance of this is seen in
the history of the coffee plantations of
Ceylon, where a previously rare and
obscure parasitic fungus, leading an
uneventful life in the tropical forests
of that country, suddenly found itself
provided with an unlimited field of
growth and exuberance in the coffee
plantations. The coffee plantations
were destroyed by this parasite, which
has now returned to its pristine
obscurity. Disharmonious, blundering
man was responsible for its brief
triumph and celebrity. Dame Nature
had not allowed the coffee fungus
more than a very moderate scope.
Man comes in and takes the reins;
disaster follows. And there is no
possibility of return to the old regime;
man must make his blunders and
retrieve them by further interference
—by the full use of his intelligence,
by the continually increasing ingenuity
of his control of the physical world,
which he has ventured to wrest from
the old rule of natural selection and
adaptation.
The adjustment of all living things
to their proper environment is one of
great delicacy, and often of surprising
limitation. In no living things is this
more remarkable than in parasites.
The relation of a parasite to the
“ host ” or “ hosts ” in which it can
flourish (often the host is only one
special species, or even variety, of plant
or animal) is illustrated by the more
familiar restriction of certain plants to
a particular soil. Thus the Cornish
heath only grows on soil overlying the
chemically peculiar serpentine rocks of
Cornwall. The two common parasitic
tapeworms of man pass their early
life the one in the pig and the other
in bovine animals. But that which
requires the pig as its first host {Tania
solium) cannot use a bovine animal as
a substitute; nor can the other (Tania
mediocan&llata) exist in a pig. Yet the
difference of porcine and bovine flesh
and juices is not a very patent one ; it
is one of small variations in highly
complex organic chemical substances.
A big earthworm-like stomach-worm
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
flourishes in man, and another kind
similar to it in the horse. But that
frequenting man cannot exist in the
horsfi^ nor that of the horse in man.
Simpler parasites, such as are the
moulds, bacteria, and again the blood
parasites, trypanosoma, etc., exhibit
absolute restrictions as to the hosts in
which they can or cannot flourish
without showing specific changes in
their vital processes. Being far simpler
in structure than the parasitic worms,
they have less “ mechanism ” at their
disposal for bringing about adjustment
to varied conditions of life. The
microscopic parasites do not submit
to alterations in the chemical character
of their surroundings without them
selves reacting and showing changed
chemical activities. A change of soil
(that is to say, of host) may destroy
them ; but, on the other hand, it may
lead to increased vigour and the most un
expected reaction on their part in the
production of virulent chemical poisons.
We are justified in believing that
until man introduced his artificially
selected and transported breeds of
cattle and horses into Africa there
was no nagana disease. The Trypano
soma Brucei lived in the blood of the
big game in perfect harmony with its
host. So, too, it is probable that the
sleeping - sickness parasite flourished
innocently in a state of adjustment
due to tolerance on the part of the
aboriginal men and animals of West
Africa. It was not until the Arab
slave raiders, European explorers, and
india-rubber thieves stirred up the quiet
populations of Central Africa, and
mixed by their violence the susceptible
with the tolerant races, that the
sleeping - sickness parasite became a
113
deadly scourge—a “ disharmony,” to
use the suggestive term introduced by
my friend Elias Metschnikoff.
The adjustment of primaeval popu
lations to their conditions has also
been broken down by “ disharmonies ”
of another kind, due to Man’s restless
invention, as explained a few years
ago in the interesting book of Dr.
Archdall Reid on “ The Present Evolu
tion of Man.” Not only does the
human race within given areas become
adjusted to a variety of local parasites,
but it acquires a tolerance of dangerous
drugs, such as alcohol and opium,
extracted by Man’s ingenuity from
materials upon which he operates. A
race thus provided and thus immune,
by its restless migrations, imposes on
unaccustomed races the deadly poisons
to the consumption of which it is itself
habituated. The unaccustomed races
are deteriorated or even exterminated
by the poisons thus introduced.
Infectious disease, it was long ago
pointed out, must be studied from
three main points of view: (1) the
life history and nature of the disease
germ or infective matter; (2) the
infected subject, his repellent or
tolerant possibilities, and his predis
position or receptivity ; (3) the inter
mediary or carrying agents. Whilst
it is true that little or nothing has
been done by the State in acquiring or
making use of knowledge as to the
first and second of these factors, with
a view to controlling the spread of
disease, it is the fact that much has
been done both in the way of investi
gation and administration in relation
to the third factor. The great public
health enquiries and consequent legis
lation in this country, in which
�114
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
scientific men of the highest qualifica
tions, such as Simon, Farr, Chadwick,
and Parkes, took part during the
Victorian period, have had excellent
results ; to them are due the vast
expenditure at the present day on pure
water, sewage disposal, and sanitary
inspection. But little or nothing has
been done in regard to the first and
second divisions of the subject, in
which the less organised portions of
the British Empire are more deeply
concerned than in waterworks and
sewer - pipes. It is still contested
whether leprosy (which is a serious
scourge in the British Empire, though
expelled from our own islands) is a
matter of predisposition caused by
diet or solely due to contagion ; and
yet it is left to individual practitioners
to work out the problem. The State
prepares vaccine lymph in a cheap
and unsatisfactory way for the use of
its—till recently—compulsorily vacci
nated citizens ; but the State, though
thus interfering in the matter of
vaccine, has spent no money to study
effectively and so to improve the
system of vaccination. Here and
there some temporary and ineffective
enquiry has been subsidised by a
Government office; but there is no
great army of investigators working in
the best possible laboratories, led by
the ablest minds of the day, with the
constant object of improving and
developing in new directions the
system of inoculation.1 Surely if
compulsion, or every pressure short
of compulsion, is justified in enforcing
vaccine inoculation on every British
family, it would be only reasonable
and consistent to expend a million or
so a year in the perfection and
intelligent control of this remedy by
the most skilled investigators. Yet
not a halfpenny is spent by the British
Government in this way. Medicine is
organised in this country by its prac
titioners as a fee-paid profession; but
as a necessary and invaluable branch
of the public service it is neglected,
misunderstood, and rendered to a large
extent futile by inadequate funds and
consequent lack of capable leaders!
The defiant, desperate battle which
civilised Man wages with Nature must
go on ; but Man’s suffering and loss in
the struggle—the delay in his ultimate
triumph—depend solely on how much
or how little the great civilised com
munities of the world seek for increased
knowledge of Nature as the basis of
their practical administration and
government.
1 [Recent progress in our knowledge of
tubercle—the disease caused by the tubercle
bacillus—renders it almost certain that a
system of preventive inoculation will have to
be applied in order to check this diseases.
Sanatoria and abstention from spitting cannot
effect much. The disease is too widely spread
and deeply rooted. It would not be possible
to isolate a fifth of the population, though
isolation would be, as in the case of leprosy,
the effective means of eradicating tubercle.]
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Ernst Haeckel.
T. H. Huxley.
36. HAECKEL: His Life and Work. ByW. Bolsche.
37. 38, and 39. 'LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE. By
Moncure D. Conway.
40. THE HAND OF GOD. By Grant Allen.
41. THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LIVING
MATTER. By H. Charlton Bastian.
42. LAST WORDS ON EVOLUTION. By Ernst
Haeckel.
43. PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
Farrer.
By J. A.
44 and 45. iHISTORY OF RATIONALISM. By
W. E. H. Lecky.
46. APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS. By T. H.
Huxley.
47 and 48. +JHISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
By W. E. H. Lecky.
49. SELECTED WORKS OF VOLTAIRE. Trans
lated by Joseph McCabe.
50. THE KINGDOM OF MAN. By Sir Ray LanKESTEK.
R.P.A. Extra Series,
JESUS CHRIST : His Apostles and Disciples in the
Twentieth Century.
By Count de Renessk.
HAECKEL’S CRITICS ANSWERED. By Joseph
McCabe.
SCIENCE AND SPECULATION. By G. H. Lewes.
NEW LIGHT ON OLD PROBLEMS. By John
Wilson, M.A.
ETHICS OF THE GREAT RELIGIONS, fiy C. T.
Gorham.
A NEW CATECHISM. By M. M. Mangasarian.
THE RELIGION OF WOMAN. By J. McCabe.
THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE
POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. By Auguste Comte.
ETHICAL RELIGION. By W. M. Salter.
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION.
By E. S. P.
Haynes.
THE
SCIENCE OF EDUCATION.
Hayward.
.
-
By F. H.
CONCERNING CHILDREN. By C. P. Gilman.
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOL. By J. A. Picton.
Various,
4J. S. MILL’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. (Unabridged.)
fTHE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF MORAL LESSONS.
By F. J. Gould.
First Series.
1THE CHURCHES & MODERN THOUGHT.
P. Vivian.
By
CHRISTIANITY AND RATIONALISM ON TRIAL.
By Joseph McCabe, J. M. Robertson, and others.
CONFESSION OF FAITH OF A MAN OF SCIENCE.
By Ernst Haeckel.
THE LEGEND OF CHRIST. By ProfessorViROLLEAUD.
*DO WE BELIEVE? A Brief Exposition of the
Rationalist Faith. By J. A. Hedderwick.
fTHE MARTYRDOM OF FERRER. By Joseph
McCabe.
THE TRUTH ABOUT SECULAR EDUCATION: Its
History and Results. By Joseph McCabe.
SUNDAY OBSERVANCE: Its Origin and Mean
ing. By W. W. Hardwicke, M.D.
* The whole of the above List, excepting those marked with an * or a J, may be had in cloth at is. net.
+ Published at 6d. net (paper).
t Published in cloth at is. 6d. net.
London: WATTS & CO., 17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�
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
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
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>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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
The kingdom of man
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: New and rev. ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: x,114, 4 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
Series title: R.P.A. Cheap Reprints
Series number: No. 50
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. First published, London: Constable, 1907. Printed in double columns. Includes bibliographical references. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited. Publisher's advertisements on four pages at end, also inside and on back cover.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray) [1847-1929]
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
1912
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N435
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 (The kingdom of man), 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
Human Beings-Origins
NSS