_CHRONOLOGY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SCIENCE._
Although the testimony of history is definite and decisive as to the
chronology of the world, within the limits of a few hundred years,
there is a general assumption, in all branches of scientific inquiry,
that man must have existed many thousand years beyond the period thus
assigned to him. Lyell speaks of "the vastness of time"[59] required
for his development, and Bunsen, as we have seen, requires twenty
thousand years, at least, between the Deluge and the nativity of
our Lord: and wherefore this discrepancy? Because of a fundamental
assumption--not merely hypothetical for the convenience of inquiry--but
confident and absolute; an assumption which, so far as the argument is
concerned, is the very matter in dispute--that man must have progressed
and developed to the point at which we see him.
[59] "Principles of Geology," tenth edition, 1868, ii. p. 471.
At the same time, the actual chronology cannot be altogether ignored,
and some cognisance must be taken of the facts which history presents
to us; and it is this unfortunate exigency, interrupting the placid
course of development, which not unfrequently lands scientific
inquirers of the first eminence in difficulties from which it will take
an indefinite lapse of time to extricate them; _ex. gra._, Bunsen, in
his "Egypt," iii. 379, says--
"It has been more than once remarked, in the course of this work,
that the _connection between the Chinese and the Egyptians_
belongs, in several of its phases, to the _general history_ of
the world. The Chinese language is the furthest point beyond that
of the formation of the Egyptian language, which represents, as
compared with it, the middle ages of mankind,--viz., the Turanian
and Chamitic stages of development."
The conclusion of philology (_vide_ also Brace's "Ethnology," p. 114)
is, therefore, that the Turanian or Chamitic grew out of the more
inorganic and elementary Chinese.
Now, let us compare Lyell's conclusions with Bunsen's. Lyell equally
believes ("Principles of Geology," ii. 471) "that three or four
thousand years is but a _minute fraction_ of the time required to bring
about such wide divergence from a common parent stock, 'as between' the
Negroes and Greeks and Jews, Mongols and Hindoos, represented on the
Egyptian monuments."
At the same time, he endorses Sir John Lubbock's view, and pronounces,
upon what appears to me very light and insufficient grounds (ii. 479),
that "the theory, therefore, that the savage races have been degraded
from a previous state of civilisation _may be rejected_:" and by
implication that the civilised races have progressed from the savage
state may be affirmed.[60]
[60] The ground upon which Lyell pronounces this judgment is
(ii. 479) "that no fragment of pottery has been found among
the nations of Australia, New Zealand, and the Polynesian
islands any more than ancient architectural remains, in all
which respects, these rude men now living, resemble the men
of the Palæolithic age; when pottery is known to all, it is
always abundant, and, though easy to break, is difficult to
destroy. It is improbable that so useful an art should ever
have been lost by any race of man." The argument is strongly
put, but many things are left out of consideration. Supposing
the primitive knowledge, is not pottery one of the arts
which would be most likely to be lost in a migration across
the seas? Again, that they had no pottery, and that the
Palæolithic age had no pottery, shows that in the interval
there had been no progress. When will there be? As to the
circumstance that it is the same among the Australians and
Polynesians, the fact cuts both ways. You assume that there
is a uniformity in progress, but may not there be the same
uniformity in the processes of degradation? and, assuming the
fact, may it not simply prove that these savages have reached
the same depth as the other savages?--_Vide_ appendix to ch.
xii.
I have, then, only to assume one point that Sir C. Lyell will concede,
the order of progress or development to have been from black to white,
and that he will pay us the compliment of being the more favoured race.
But of all the races that are akin to the Mongol or Turanian, the
Chinese are the whitest, and most nearly approach the European in
colour.
How many years, then, may we suppose that it took the Chinese to
progress from the black state of the Egyptian? as many, let us
conjecture, as it took the Egyptian to progress linguistically from the
state of the Chinese or Mongol!
This is one instance of the entanglement in which the theory of
progress, pure and simple, from a parent stock will involve us. The
obvious mode of escape would be to deny the unity of the human race,
a conclusion which would at once land us in the darkness of a still
lower abyss, and convert our processes from being scientific in form
and hopeful of result, into empirical and aimless conjectures. For
either the theory is started that the various races of mankind were
created separately, in which case we fly into the face of the only
account we have of creation, and also of the multiform testimonies
which history and science bring to attest this truth, and we, moreover,
debar ourselves from falling back upon any uniform theory applicable to
the whole human race; or if, without advertence to creation, we suppose
mankind to have been variously developed, here again we shall equally
find ourselves cut off from the application of any uniform historical
theory, equally unable to account for or to exclude the testimony of
history, and in the end reduced to the evidences, whatever they may be
worth, of certain real or fancied analogies.[61] At this point, the
historical inquiry will be virtually abandoned, and the records of the
past merged in the phenomena of life, will be considered only in the
light of some pantheistic or materialistic theory, or, so far as it is
distinguishable, of some theory of evolution.
[61] The following passage from M. A. Bastian's article in _The
Academy_, June 15, 1871, "On the People of India," seems
to me to afford an illustration in point--"The natural
system becomes an indispensable necessity in every science,
so soon as it is clearly seen that the question is not of
classification, but of observation of, and insight into,
law. Classification was long held to be the sole end,
instead of being merely or mainly the means of study. As,
in this respect, systematic botany gave place to vegetable
physiology, so, in like manner, ethnology will have to look
upon its classification of race--with which the school books
hitherto have been almost exclusively occupied--as merely a
preliminary step towards a physiology of mankind, and to _a
science of the laws_ which _govern its spiritual growth_."
Now, if no physiology of mankind, in the sense here intended,
can be traced, and if "the science of the laws which govern
its spiritual growth" (_vide infra_, an exposition of Mr
Baring Gould's theory) has come to no definite conclusion,
then the only result, as far as science is concerned, will
have been the revolutionising of its classifications, and the
classifications of the different races of men (and, in so far
as they have been accurately ascertained, their confusion will
be matter of regret) is the legitimate and ultimate end of
ethnology under normal conditions.
I am no longer concerned with any of these theories the moment they
discard the historical element; and I shall, accordingly, return to the
theory of Sir John Lubbock, which is honestly based upon it.
When all is said, I cannot make out that Sir John adduces any argument
in favour of the antiquity of the human race which does not resolve
itself into the contrast between our civilisation and the degradation
of savages; and that the time which must have elapsed to bring about
this transformation is measured by the fact that the negro, of the
"true Nigritian stamp," appears upon the Egyptian monuments, at
least as far back as B.C. 2400. "Historians, philologists,
and physiologists have alike admitted that the short period allowed
in Archbishop Usher's chronology could hardly be reconciled with
the history of some Eastern nations, and that it did not leave room
_for the development either of_ the different languages or of the
numerous physical peculiarities by which various races of men are
distinguished."[62] As no facts in the history of Eastern nations are
adduced, I shall consider that this part of the argument has been
sufficiently disposed of in the preceding chapters, and if they had
been adduced, I venture to think that they would have been interpreted
by the latter part of the sentence, and would have been incompatible
with the chronology, only because they did not allow sufficient time
"for the development," &c. Of this sort of fact, I admit, nothing
stronger can be adduced than the case of the negro on the Egyptian
monuments, only I wish to direct attention to the different aspect
these facts will bear when the theory of progress is not assumed as
an infallible proposition. Moreover, as Mr Poole, whom Sir J. Lubbock
very candidly quotes, points out, in the interval between this and
2400 B.C. we do not find "the least change in the negro or
the Arab; and even the type which seems to be intermediate between
them, is virtually as unaltered. Those who consider that length of
time can change a type of man, will do well to consider the fact
that three thousand years give no ratio on which a calculation could
be founded." So that if Arch. Usher had expanded his chronology so
as to take in the twenty thousand years Bunsen requires, it really
would not appreciably have affected the argument. Sir J. Lubbock,
indeed, says (p. 477)--"I am, however, not aware that it is supposed
by any school of ethnologists that 'time' alone, without a change of
external conditions, will produce an alteration of type." "Let us,"
he continues, "turn now to the instances relied on by Mr Crawford.
The millions, he says, of African negroes that have, during three
centuries, been transported to the New World and its islands, are the
same in colour as the present inhabitants of the parent country of
their forefathers. The Creole Spaniards ... are as fair as the people
of Arragon and Andalusia. The pure Dutch Creole colonists of the Cape
of Good Hope, after dwelling two centuries among black Caffres and
yellow Hottentots, do not differ in colour from the people of Holland."
[The strongest case is, perhaps, that of the American Indians, who do
not vary from a uniform copper colour in north or south--in Canada
or on the line.][63] In these instances, Sir J. Lubbock says:--"We
have great change of circumstances, but a very insufficient lapse of
time, and, in fact, there is no well authenticated case [he does not,
however, advert to the case of the Indians, which seems to satisfy both
conditions] in which these two requisites are united," ... and adds,
"there is already a marked difference between the English of Europe and
the English of America;" but is full allowance made here for admixture
of race? and, also, is his instance to the point? Is not the difficulty
rather that, whereas climate, food, change of circumstances have (for,
I think, the balance of the argument is on that side), in many ways,
modified other races (though whether to the extent of destroying the
characteristic type, may be open to question), the negro has resisted
these influences, and has remained the same negro that we find him 2400
B.C.? Consider that it is only a question of degree, and that
it is merely true that the negro has resisted these influences more
persistently than other races.[64] Still the contrast is not the less
startling when we find the negro in the same relative position, and
with the same stamp of inferiority, that we find indelibly impressed
upon him four thousand years ago? It is a case which neither the theory
of progress, nor the theory of degeneracy, seems to touch.
[62] Sir J. Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," p. 313.
[63] It has almost passed into a proverb, says Morton--who is among
those who know the Americans best--that he who has seen one
Indian tribe has seen them all, so closely do the individuals
of this race resemble each other, whatever may be the variety
or the extent of the countries they inhabit." Reusch's "La
Bible et la Nature," _vide_ also Card. Wiseman's "Lect. on
Science and Rev. Rel." lect. iv., _vide_, however, Reusch,
p. 498, where "a remarkable difference in the cranium" is
noticed, "sometimes approaching the Malay, sometimes the
Mongol shape."
[64] That the negro has undergone modifications, seems established
by the fact that we nowhere find all the characteristics of
the negro united in any one case--unless, perhaps, in the case
of the negroes of Guinea, to which I have alluded. Yet, in
the people who border them, there has been noticed "un retour
vers des formes superieures." The Yoloss, "out le front élevé,
des machoires peu saillantes, leurs dents sont droites, et
ils sont en général bein constitués, _mais ils sont tout à
fait noirs_. Leurs voisins, les Mandingues, tiennent beaucoup
plus du type négre ... mais leur teint est beaucoup moins
noir."--De Bur. ap. Reusch, p. 505. But under no influences
of climate has the negro ever become white like the European,
or the European black like the inhabitant of Guinea; if they
become darker, "c'est simplement la teint particulier à leur
race qui gagne en intensité."--Burminster, ap. Reusch, p. 509.
But it is a case which De Maistre's view exactly solves. Now, however
much we may rebel against De Maistre's theory, that the early races of
mankind were endowed with higher and more intuitive moral faculties
than ours, and, whether or not, we accept his _dictum_ that great
punishments pre-suppose great knowledge, and reversely, that higher
knowledge implies the liability to great punishments, I do not see
how we can refuse to consider the matter, so far as to see whether
the view solves all the difficulties of the question. It is not the
first time that the blackness of the African race has been connected in
theory with a curse; but De Maistre's theory throws a new light on the
malediction--whether it be the curse of Cham or of Chanaan, or whether
both were smitten, according to different degrees of culpability:
and I maintain, further, that it is adequate to the explanation of
the phenomena, that it does not clash with history, and that it is
sustained by tradition.
Nevertheless, I apprehend that this view will be as much combated from
the point of view of scriptural exegesis, as of scientific speculation.
Yet the curse of Cham, or of Chanaan, affecting all their posterity,
ought not in reason to be more revolting even to those who have never
realised what sin is, than the narrative of the fall of Adam and Eve
with its direful consequences. The theory seems perfectly conformable
to Scripture, and to what we know of the secrets of the Divine
judgments. The picture of Cham, or Chanaan, stricken with blackness,
does not present a more sudden or more terrible retribution to the
mind than the Fall of the Angels. How many thousand years did it take
to transform Lucifer into Satan? or the primitive Adam into the Adam
feeling shame, and conscious of decay, want, and the doom of death?
On the other hand, blackness, from the commencement, has been
associated with evil. To this it may be replied that this is the
sentiment merely of the white races--a natural prejudice of colour, an
_ex parte_ deduction; and to this argument, if such is the view really
taken by the black races, and if no consciousness can be detected of
their degradation amongst themselves, I see no other reply than this,
That since, _ex hypothesi_, they are black because they are cursed,
the tradition of this curse would be more naturally preserved by the
white races than by the black. But is there no consciousness of this
inferiority in the true negro? Without looking at the matter from
the same point of view, I may appeal to Captain Burton's statements
on this point as to a fully competent, if not the highest, authority
that can be quoted on points of African travel. In the first place,
he notices "the confusion of the mixed and the mulatto with the
full-blooded negro. By the latter word I understand the various tribes
of intertropical Africa, unmixed with European or Asiatic blood"
("Dahome," ii. 187); and p. 193, "I have elsewhere given reasons for
suspecting, in the great Kafir family, a considerable mixture of
Arab, Persian, and other Asiatic blood:" and as to the particular
point in question, he says (p. 200), "The negro will obey a white man
more readily than a mulatto, and a mulatto rather than one of his own
colour. He never thinks of claiming equality with the Aryan race except
when taught. At Whydat, the French missionaries remark that their
scholars always translate 'white and black by master and slave.'" P.
189, "One of Mr Prichard's few good generalisations is, that as a rule
the darker and dingier the African tribe, the more degraded is its
organisation."[65] I find a very similar testimony in Crawford's "Hist.
of the Indian Archipelago," i. 18. He says, "The brown and negro races
of the Archipelago may be considered to present, in their physical and
moral characters, a complete parallel with the white and negro races in
the western world. The first has always displayed as great a relative
superiority over the second, as the race of white men have done over
the negroes of the west." Yet at p. 20 he says, "The Javanese, who live
most comfortably, are among the darkest people in the Archipelago, the
wretched Dyaks, or cannibals of Borneo, among the fairest." It must
be noted, however, that the Javanese have also preserved something of
primitive tradition--_e.g._ their marriage ceremony. And, moreover,
it is not at all essential to the argument to prove that the negroes
are the _most degraded_ race. Let it be said that they have had their
curse, and that the sign of the curse is in their blackness--this is
merely equivalent to saying that they are cursed _pro tanto_; but it by
no means follows that other races have not fallen to lower depths, and
incurred a deeper reprobation.[66]
[65] Captain Burton (ii. 165) also quotes a Catholic and a
Protestant missionary as to this point. M. Wallon says, "Avec
leur tendance à nous considérer comme réellement supérieurs à
eux, et leur croyance que cette supériorité nous est acquise
par celle de notre Dieu, ils renonceraient bientôt aux leurs
idoles pour adorer celui qui nous leur prions de connaître."
Mr Dawson says, "Fetish has been strengthened by the white
man, whom the ignorant blacks would not scruple to call a god
if he could avoid death."
Assuming the identity of Bacchus and Noah, it is a striking
circumstance, from this point of view, that the name of
_Bacchus_, among the Phoenicians, was a synonymous term for
mourning.--_Vide Hesychius in Bryant's "Mythology,"_ ii. 335;
_vide also the verses of Theocritus_. Comp. p. 247, _note_
(Boulanger).
[66] Perhaps Captain Burton's phrase (ii. 178), "the _arrested_
physical development of the negro," may, if extended to his
mental development, exactly hit the truth, the standard being
fixed by the age at which we conceive the boy Chanaan's
development to have been _arrested_.--Comp. _Wallace, infra_,
p. 91; comp. 217.
Among the Sioux Indians, and in the isle of Tonga (Oceanica), I find
trace of the tradition of blackness as a curse, and I should think
it likely that other instances might be discovered. The former (the
Sioux), in their reminiscences of the Deluge, relate, "The water
remained on the earth only two days (for the two months during which
the Scripture says it was at its height), at the expiration of which
the Master of Life, seeing that they had need of fire, sent it them by
a white crow, which, stopping to devour carrion, allowed the fire to be
extinguished. He returned to heaven to seek it. The Great Spirit drove
it away, and punished it by _striking it black_."--"_Annales de la
Prop. de la Foi_," l. iv. 537; Gainet, i. 211.
In Tonga, the tradition is connected with this history of Cain:--
"The god Tangaloa,[67] who first inhabited this earth, is this
Adam. He had two sons, who went to live at Boloton.... The younger
was very clever. Tonbo (the eldest) was very different; he did
nothing but walk about, sleep, and covet the works of his brother.
One day he met his brother out walking, and knocked him down. Then
their father arrived at Boloton, and in great anger said, 'Why
has thou killed thy brother. Fly, wretched man; fly. _Your race
shall be black_, and your soul depraved; you shall labour without
success. Begone; you shall not go to the land of your brother, but
your brother shall come sometimes to trade with you.' And he said
to the family of the victim, 'Go towards the great land; your skin
shall be white; you shall excel in all good things.'"--_Gainet_, i.
93.[68]
[67] "Annales de Philos. Chret.," t. xiii. p. 235.
[68] The expressions in the latter part of this narration recall
the blessing of Jacob, and suggests the possibility of the
tradition having come through descendants of Esau.
Cardinal Wiseman (in his "Science and Revealed Religion," lect. iii.),
says, with reference to Aristotle's distribution of mankind into races
by colour:--
"There is a passage in Julius Firmicus, overlooked by the
commentators of Aristotle, which gives us the same ternary
division, with the colours of each race. 'In the first place,' he
writes, 'speaking of the characters and colours of men, they agree
in saying,--if by the mixed influence of the stars, the characters
and complexions of men are distributed; and if the course of the
heavenly bodies, by a certain kind of artful painting, form the
lineaments of mortal bodies; that is, if the moon makes men white,
Mars red, _and Saturn black_, how comes it that in Ethiopia all are
born black, in Germany white, and in Thrace red?'"--_Astronomicon_,
lib. i., c. i., ed. Basil. 1551, p. 3.
Now this passage seems to me to have a still further significance in
the words I have italicised, with reference to the argument I have in
hand. It transpires, therefore, that the ancients had the notion that
Saturn made men black, which provoked the natural query, why then are
only the Ethiopians black? That it should ever have been supposed that
the distant Saturn, astronomically regarded, should have had such an
influence is preposterous, but if the mythological personage, Saturn,
ch. x., has been sufficiently identified with Noah, and the deification
of the hero in the planet (comp. pp. 159, 161) probable, the notion
that _he made men black_, must be the tradition of the event we are
considering.
I have elsewhere traced the fulfilment of the text which says that
Canaan shall be the "servant of servants to his brethren;" but as the
following extract from Klaproth, in evidence of the same, has also its
significance with reference to the point I am now considering--viz.
the curse of blackness--I prefer to give it a place here:--"Sakhalian
oudehounga est expliqué en Chinois par 'Khian chéon,' et par 'li chu,'
ce qui signifie les '_têtes noires_' et le '_peuple noir_,' expression
par laquelle on designe la 'bas peuple' ou les 'paysans.' Cette
une expression _usitée dans plusieures pays Asiatiques ainsi qu'en
Russie."--Klaproth, "Mem. Relatif a l'Asie;" vide strictures on Pere
Amyot's "Mandchou Dict_."
In the oldest books of the Zendavasta, virtue and vice are personified
as white and black. "The contrast between good and evil is strongly and
sharply marked in the Gâthâs.... They go a step further and personify
the two parties to the struggle. One is a 'white,' or holy spirit
(_spentô mainyus_), and the other, a 'dark' spirit (_angrô mainyus_).
But this personification is merely poetical or metaphysical, not
real."--_Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies_," iii. p. 106. The contrast,
however, between good and evil, as white and black was the genuine
expression of their idea or tradition. (Hung. ap. Bunsen, iii. p. 476,
admits, at least in one instance in the Gâthâs, "an angra ('black') is
put in opposition to the white, or more holy spirit.")
Mr Hunter ("Rural Bengal," p. 114) says of the primitive Aryans in
India--"The ancient singer praises the _god_ who 'destroyed the Dasyans
and protected the _Aryan colour_" (Rig. Veda., iii. pp. 34-39), and
"the thunderer, who bestowed on his white friends the fields," &c.
Whatever obscurity may attach to the latter passage, there can be no
doubt of the abhorrence with which the singers speak, _again_ and
_again_, of "_the black skin_," ... _e.g._ "the sacrificer poured
out thanks to his god for 'scattering the _slave_ bands of _black
descent_.'"
Although I believe the idea was traditional and had reference to the
curse, I will concede that it might have arisen primarily in the
contrast of night and day, light and darkness. But does this settle the
question? On the contrary, fortified with this explanation, I return to
my argument with those, who say that blackness is a mere prejudice of
race, and that it is not demonstrable that it is the sign of a curse,
or the mark of inferiority. Does not Nature herself proclaim it, in
her contrast of light and darkness? Day and night, I imagine, would be
recognised as apt symbols of error and evil as opposed to truth and
goodness, even among the black races, irrespective of any consciousness
or reminiscence of their degradation. Accordingly, the deeds of evil
in Scripture are spoken of as the "works of darkness." It may be,
therefore, that the idea of blackness as a curse is derived primitively
from its association with the darkness of night; but the fact remains
that blackness is connected in our minds with a curse,[69] and there
is the further fact that a black race exists, and has existed during
four thousand years, with this mark of inferiority upon it (compare
_sup._ ch. iii. ix.)
[69] This is so much in tradition as to be a matter of common
parlance--for instance, when the late Emperor of the French
is depicted, this is the language which, upon a certain
construction, appears most natural--"On the other side stands
a phalanx of satirists, represented by Victor Hugo. The only
colour on the palette of those artists is _lamp black_.
Morally they paint the ex-Emperor as _dark as a negro_, array
him _in the livery of the devil_, and _then_ invoke the
_execration_ of history."--_Spectator_, Sept. 17th, 1870.
But a point of some difficulty remains to be determined--viz. what
precisely was the race which came under this ban. Was it the whole
descent of Ham, or only the posterity of Chanaan ?
Hales, in his learned work on chronology (i. p. 344), discusses this
question. He says that, whereas--
"Even the most learned expositors (Bochart and Mede) have
implicitly adopted the appropriation of the curse of servitude to
Ham and his posterity." Yet "the integrity of the received text of
prophecy, limiting the curse to 'Canaan' singly, is fully supported
by the concurrence of the Massorite and Samaritan Hebrew texts,
with _all the other_ ancient versions except the Arabian; and is
acknowledged, we see, by Josephus and Abulfaragi (_sup._), who
evidently confine the curse to Canaan--though they inconsistently
consider Ham as the offender, and are not a little embarrassed to
exempt him and _the rest of his children_[70] from the operation
of the curse--an exemption, indeed, attested by sacred and profane
history; for Ham himself had his full share of earthly blessings,
his son Misr colonised Egypt, thence styled the land of Ham (Ps.
cv. 23), which soon became one of the earliest, most civilised,
and flourishing kingdoms of antiquity, and was established before
Abraham's days (Gen. xii. 14-20), and in the glorious reign of
Sesostris ... while Ham's posterity, in the line of Cush, not only
founded the first Assyrian empire, under Nimrod, but also the
Persian (?), the Grecian (?), and the Roman (?) empires, in direct
contradiction to the unguarded assertion of Mede [that 'there
hath never yet been a son of Ham that hath shaken a sceptre over
the head of Japheth.'] How, then, is the propriety of the curse
exclusively to Canaan to be vindicated?--evidently by considering
him as the only guilty person ... upon the very ingenious
conjecture of Faber, that the 'youngest son' who offended was not
Ham, but Canaan--not the son, but the grandson of Noah. For the
original, 'his little son,' according to the latitude of the Hebrew
idiom, may denote a grandson, by the same analogy that Nimrod....
this (the former) interpretation is supported by ancient Jewish
tradition, 'Boresith Rabba,' sec. 37, recorded also by Theodoret
... the tradition, indeed, also adds that Ham joined in the
mockery, but for this addition there seems no sufficient grounds."
[70] The italics are mine.
There is, however, the tradition, and, moreover, a distinct tradition
that Ham was black. Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, in his "Manners and
Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," i., says--
"The Hebrew word Ham is identical with the Egyptian Khem, being
properly written Khm, Kham, or Khem, and is the same which the
Egyptians themselves gave to their country in the sculptures of
the earliest and latest periods" (261). Egypt was denominated
Chemi (Khemi), or the land of Ham, "as we find in the hieroglyphic
legends; and the city of Khem, or Panopolis, was called in
Egyptian Chemmo, of which evident traces are preserved in that of
the modern town E'Khmim" (260). "Besides the hieroglyphic group,
composed of the two above alluded to (260), indicating Egypt, was
one consisting of _an eye_, and the sign land, _which bore the
same_ signification; and since _the pupil_, or _black_ of the eye,
was called _Chemi_, we may conclude this to be a phonetic mode
of writing the name of Egypt, which Plutarch pretends was called
Chemmia, from the _blackness_ of its soil" (263). "_Chame_ is
_black_ in _Coptic_, Egypt is _Chemi_, and it is remarkable that
_khom_ or _chom_ is used in Hebrew for black or brown, as in Gen.
xxx. 32-40."--_Id._
Here then, at any rate, the name of Ham or Cham is curiously associated
with blackness, and must have been so associated from the commencement
of Egyptian history. I leave it to the Egyptologist to decide whether
the presumption is stronger that the name of Egypt, identical with
that of Ham, was originally derived from the blackness of its soil,
or from the blackness of him whose name was identical with it ("the
land of Ham" being both the scriptural and Egyptian appellation),
more especially when "the eye" (apparently a personal or historical,
not certainly a geographical allusion) was used as an equivalent
hieroglyphic symbol for land.[71]
[71] The eye would be the very most apposite symbol for blackness,
if we consider that blackness lingers there after the skin has
become white, and, in the case of half-breeds, is the test of
descent in gradations even beyond, I believe, the octoroon.
Captain King ("Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical
and Western Coasts of Australia," ii. Append.) says, "That
although there is the greatest diversity of words among the
Australian tribes, the equivalent for 'eye' is common to them
all."
Here, as in other instances, if we follow the strict lines of
tradition, it seems to me that we shall escape all the difficulties
which are usually alleged against it. It will result then that,
although according to the text of Scripture, the curse of servitude was
limited to the posterity of Chanaan; yet, seeing that the criminality
was common to Ham and Chanaan, according to the tradition referred to,
and as is, moreover, implied in the marked manner in which Scripture
(Gen. xviii. 22) indicates Cham as "the father of Chanaan," it is
presumable that, if blackness was the concomitant of the curse, it
extended to both Ham and Chanaan, and, by implication, to their
posterity, but then _after the curse_. As Chanaan, according to the
tradition, was then a boy, all his children would have been affected
by the curse; but does it follow that all Ham's descent was involved
in the malediction? This would be to suppose a retrospective curse,
for which the only analogy would be the hypothesis that if Adam had
sinned after the birth of Cain and Abel, they and their posterity would
also have incurred the guilt of original sin. Now the sons of Ham were
(Gen. x. 6) "Chus and Mesram and Phuth and Chanaan," _i.e._, Chus and
Mesram and Phuth were the elder brothers of Chanaan, and therefore not
the children of Ham after the pronouncement of the curse. If, then, we
find the children of Mesram dark, but without the negro features or
the blackness of Canaan; if "Sesostris, his descendant, was a great
conqueror;" if Nimrod, the son of Chus, was a powerful chieftain,
and the founder of the Assyrian empire; if nothing is known of the
posterity of Phuth beyond the conjecture that they were the Lybians--in
a word, if the descent from these three sons does not bear out the
evidence of the curse, can it be said to militate at all against the
hypothesis of the curse of Ham as well as of Canaan?
Moreover, if there are differences among the black races which may
present difficulties, would not the knowledge that there may have been
a posterity of Ham, born after the curse,[72] go far to remove them?
Hales, indeed, assumes that "Ham himself had his full share of earthly
blessings; his son Misr colonised Egypt," &c. (as _sup._); but this
prosperity, as he indicates it, is only seen in the prosperity of his
three sons, whom I assume to have been exempt from the curse. It must
be remembered, however, that the occult science of the Cainites was
said to have been preserved by the family of Ham, and, as we have seen,
the taint was in the race.[73]
[72] Lenormant, "Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne," i. 23, makes a
similar suggestion as to this point--"La texte de la Bible
n'a rien qui s'oppose formellement à l'hypothèse que Noè
aurait eu, postérieurement au deluge, d'autres enfants que
Sem, Cham, et Japhet, d'où seraient sorties les races qui ne
figurent pas dans la généalogie de ces trois personnages." But
two objections seem to me to be fatal to this view. The races
about whom this difficulty would be raised would be the red
and black races: why should it be surmised that the supposed
posterity of Noah, after the Deluge, _should_ have this mark
of inferiority? In the second place, it does seem to be
formally opposed to Gen. x. 32--"These are the _families_ of
_Noe_, according to their peoples and nations. _By these_ were
the nations divided on the earth after the flood."
The red races might perhaps be accounted for by Gen. xxv.
23-25.
[73] There appears to me, however, a text to which attention
might be directed. We know that the Ethiopians were black,
but in Amos ix. 7, where God is expressing His anger against
His people, He says, "Are you not as the children of the
Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel, saith the Lord."
I am very far from claiming for these theories any special
ecclesiastical countenance and authority. I have already intimated my
opinion that, on the whole, they would be as much opposed from the
point of view of scriptural exegesis as from that of unbelief. It will
be said, for instance, that there is evidence in Scripture of the curse
of Canaan, but no proof that blackness was the concomitant effect of
the curse; and certainly it is not Scripture which affirms this, but
only tradition.
To those who admit the curse, but deny the consequences which tradition
attributes to it, I would oppose an almost identical argument with that
which accounts for all differences in the human race by geographical
location. I do not know where this argument is more forcibly put than
in Latham's "Ethnology." There it is seemingly demonstrated that
certain conditions, not merely of colour, but moral and intellectual,
are the inseparable accompaniments of geographical location. Grant it,
_pro argumento_, but I am arguing now upon the scriptural evidence, and
with one with whom I assume I have a common belief in its inspiration.
It is true, then, that the curse of blackness is not recorded, but
the distribution of the races is at least implied: Deut. xxxii. 8,
"_When the Most High divided the nations, when He separated the sons
of Adam_, he appointed the bounds of people according to the number
of the children of Israel;" and Acts xvii. 26, "And hath made of one
all mankind, to dwell upon the _whole face_ of the earth, _determining
appointed times_, and _the limits_ of _their habitation_." (The Prot.
version translates, "Having appointed the _predetermined seasons_ and
_boundaries of_ their dwellings." _Vide_ Hales's Chron., i. 351, who
adds that this was conformable to their own allegory "that Chronos, the
god of time, or Saturn, divided the universe among his three sons.")[74]
[74] _Vide_ also ch. x., p. 239. The tradition that Phoroneus,
"the father of mankind," distributed the nations over the
earth, _idem nationes distribuit_.
If, then, the different races of mankind, according to their merits or
demerits, were apportioned to, or miraculously directed or impelled
to, respective portions of the earth, which necessarily superinduced
certain effects, is not the curse as apparent in its indirect operation
as it would have been in its suddenness and directness?
This consideration must, I think, bring those who raise scriptural
difficulties against the theory to the admission that blackness was a
sign of inferiority, and that certain races were either smitten with,
or were predestined to, in consequence of culpability, this degradation.
This, I admit, is no reply to those who argue from the evidence of the
Egyptian monuments. But the evidence from the monuments, so far from
embarrassing my conclusion, seems absolutely to enforce it. If, indeed,
the evidence from the monuments did not stare one in the face, we might
fall back upon the line of argument which I have just indicated, and
whilst recognising in their blackness the operation of a curse, trace
it in the lapse of centuries and the influences of the torrid zone. But
they are recorded as being black on the earliest monuments known to us,
and within a few centuries of the Deluge. The conclusion, therefore,
seems inevitable, that they were so from the commencement, which
exactly hits in with the tradition of the curse of Canaan.
Such, from his own point of view, is the conclusion of Sir J. Lubbock
("Prehistoric Times," p. 478)--
"If there is any truth in this view of the subject (p. 478), it
will necessarily follow that the principal varieties of man are of
great antiquity, and, in fact, go back almost to the very origin
of the human race. We may then cease to wonder that the earliest
paintings on Egyptian tombs represent so accurately several various
varieties still existing in those regions, and that the Engis
skull, probably the most ancient yet found in Europe, so closely
resembles many that may be seen even at the present day."
The following conclusion of Mr Wallace also exactly coincides with De
Maistre's view.
Lyell, in his "Principles of Geology" (ii. 471) says--
"Wallace suggests that at some former period man's corporeal frame
must have been _more pliant and variable_ than _it is now_; for,
according to the observed rate of fluctuation in modern times,
scarcely any conceivable lapse of ages would suffice to give rise
to such an amount of differentiation. He therefore concludes, that
when first the _mental_ and _moral_ qualities of man acquired
predominance, his bodily frame _ceased to vary_."
But, although science in its own way may arrive at approximations to
the truth, yet, if the traditional solution be true, assuredly it is
not a solution which will be reached by any merely scientific process;
and therefore, if it should be the truth, the ethnological difficulty
will remain an enigma and embarrassment to the learned in all time to
come.