UNITY AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
"These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their
generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations
divided in the earth after the flood."--Genesis x., 32.
The theologians and evangelical Christians of our time, and with them
the credibility of the Holy Scriptures, are supposed by many to have
been impaled on a zoological and archaeological dilemma, in a manner
which renders nugatory all attempts to reconcile the Mosaic cosmogony
with science. The Bible, as we have seen, knows but one Adam, and that
Adam not a myth or an ethnic name, but a veritable man; but some
naturalists and ethnologists think that they have found decisive
evidence that man is not of one but of several origins. The religious
tendency of this doctrine no Christian can fail to perceive. In
whatever way put, or under whatever disguise, it renders the Bible
history worthless, reduces us to that isolation of race from race
cultivated in ancient times by the various local idolatries, and
destroys the brotherhood of man and the universality of that Christian
atonement which proclaims that "as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall
all be made alive."
Fortunately, however, the greater weight of biological and
archaeological evidence is here on the side of the Bible, and philology
comes in with strong corroborative proof. But just as the orthodox
theologian is beginning to congratulate himself on the aid he has
thus received, some of his new friends gravely tell him that, in order
to maintain their view, it is necessary to believe that man has
resided on earth for countless ages, and that it is quite a mistake to
suppose that his starting-point is so recent as the Mosaic deluge.
Nay, some very rampant theorists of some ethnological schools try to
pierce Moses and his abettors with both horns of the dilemma at once,
maintaining that men may be of different species, and yet may have
existed for an enormous length of time as well. The recent prevalence
of theories of evolution has, however, thrown quite into the
background the discussions formerly active respecting the unity of
man, but has, along with geological and archaeological discovery, given
increased prominence to those relating to the date of the origin of
our species and the manner of its introduction.
The Bible gives us a definite epoch, that of the deluge, about 2000 to
3000 B.C., for all existing races of men; but this, according to it,
was only the second starting-point of humanity, and though no family
but that of Noah survived the terrible catastrophe, it would be a
great error to suppose that nothing antediluvian appears in the
subsequent history of man. Before the deluge there were arts and an
old civilization, extending over at least two thousand years, and
after the deluge men carried with them these heirlooms of the old
world to commence with them new nations. This has been tacitly ignored
by many of the writers who underrate the value of the Hebrew history.
It may be as well for this reason to place, in a series of
propositions, the principal points in Genesis which relate to the
questions now before us.
1. Adam and Isha, the woman, afterward called Eve (Life-giver), in
consequence of the promise of a Redeemer, commenced a life of
husbandry on their expulsion from Eden, which, on the ordinary views
of the Bible chronology, may be supposed to have occurred from 4000 to
5000 years before the Christian era; and during the lifetime of the
primal pair, the sheep, at least, was domesticated. The Bible, of
course, knows nothing of the imaginary continent of Lemuria, in which,
according to some hypotheses, men are supposed to have had their birth
from apes. A few generations after, in the time of Lamech, cattle were
domesticated; and the metals copper and iron were applied to use--the
latter probably meteoric iron; and hence, it may be, the Hindoo and
Hellenic myths of Twachtrei and Hephaestos in connection with the
thunderbolt. We learn, however, incidentally, as already mentioned, in
the description of Eden in Genesis, chapter 2d, that there was a
previous stone age, in which "flint, pearls or shell beads, and
stream-gold" were the chief treasures of man, for this is implied in
the "gold, bedolach, and onyx" of the land of Havilah. It is certain
also, from the discoveries made in Assyria, on the site of Troy, and
elsewhere, that the use of stone implements continued in Western Asia
long after the deluge. In the time of Noah the distinction of clean
and unclean beasts, and the taking of seven pairs of certain beasts
and birds into the ark, imply that certain mammals and birds were
domesticated.[108]
2. Before the flood, as already remarked, there was a division of man
into two nationalities or races; and there was a citizen, an
agricultural, a pastoral, and a nomadic population. Farther, the
remarkable progress in the arts implied in the building of such
structures as the Tower of Babel, and other temple and palace mounds
in Assyria, and of the pyramids of Egypt, within a few generations
after the deluge, proves that a very advanced material civilization
and great skill in constructive arts had been reached in antediluvian
times.[109]
3. After the deluge, the arts of the antediluvians and their citizen
life were almost immediately revived in the plain of Shinar; but the
plans of the Babel leaders, like those of many others who have
attempted to force distinct tribes into one nationality, failed. The
guilt attributed to them probably relates to the attempt to break up
the patriarchal and tribal organization, which in these early times
was the outward form of true religion, in favor of some sort of
national organization, not compatible with the extension of man
immediately over the world, and tending to consolidation into dense
communities. It may be a question here whether the tribal communism
which has prevailed among the American Indians and other rude races
was the primitive form of society which the Babel-builders essayed to
change, or whether the Semitic patriarchal system had at first
prevailed, and the Babel difficulties were connected with a conflict
between this and communism or despotism, both new Turanian or Aryan
introductions. In any case, Babel, and Babylon its successor, remain
in the subsequent Biblical literature as types of the God-defying and
antichristian systems that have succeeded each other from the time of
Nimrod to this day.
4. The human race was scattered over the earth in family groups or
tribes, each headed by a leading patriarch, who gave it its name.
First, the three sons of Noah formed three main stems, and from these
diverged several family branches. The ethnological chart in the 10th
chapter of Genesis gives the principal branches under patriarchal and
ethnic names; but these, of course, continued to subdivide beyond the
space and time referred to by the sacred writer. It is simply absurd
to object, as some writers have done, to the universality of the
statements in Genesis, that they do not mention in detail the whole
earth. They refer to a few generations only, and beyond this restrict
themselves to the one branch of the human family to which the Bible
principally relates. We should be thankful for so much of the leading
lines of ethnological divergence, without complaining that it is not
followed out into its minute ramifications and into all history.
5. The tripartite division in Genesis x. indicates a somewhat strict
geographical separation of the three main trunks. The regions marked
out for Japheth include Europe and Northwestern Asia. The name
Japheth, as well as the statements in the table, indicate a versatile,
nomadic, and colonizing disposition as characteristic of these
tribes.[110] The Median population, the same with a portion of that
now often called Aryan,[111] was the only branch remaining near the
original seats of the species, and in a settled condition. The
outlying portions of the posterity of Japheth, on account of their
wide dispersion, must at a very early period have fallen into
comparative barbarism, such as we find in historic periods all over
Western and Northern Europe and Northern Asia. Owing to their habitat,
the Japhetites of the Bible include none of the black races, unless
certain Indian and Australian nations are outlying portions of this
family. The Shemite nations showed little tendency to migrate, being
grouped about the Euphrates and Tigris valleys and neighboring
regions. For this reason, with the exception of certain Arab tribes,
they present no instances of barbarism, and generally retained a high
cerebral organization, and respectable though stationary civilization,
and they possess the oldest alphabet and literature. The posterity of
Ham differs remarkably from the others. It spread itself over
Southern, Central, and Eastern Asia, Southern Europe, and Northern
Africa, and constitutes the stock alike of the Turanian and African
races, as well as probably of the American tribes. It has all along
displayed a great capacity for certain forms of art and
semi-civilization, but has rarely risen to the level of the Shemite
and Japhetite races. It established the earliest military and
monarchical institutions, and presents at the dawn of history--in
Assyria, in Egypt, and India--settled and arbitrary forms in politics
and religion, of a character so much resembling that of an old and
corrupt civilization that we can scarcely avoid supposing that Ham and
his family had preserved more than any of the other Noachian races the
arts and institutions of the old world before the flood. It certainly
presents itself in early postdiluvian times as the first
representative and teacher of art and material civilization. The
Hamite race is remarkable for the early development of pantheism and
hero-worship, and for the artificial character of its culture. It
presents us with the darkest colors, and in the vast solitudes of
Africa and Central Asia its outlying tribes must have fallen into
comparative barbarism a few centuries after the deluge. It is farther
to be observed that, according to the Bible, the Canaanites and other
Hamite nations spoke languages not essentially different from those of
the Shemites, while the Japhetite nations were to them barbarians--"a
nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand." There was, too, at the
date of the dispersion of Babel, already a distinction of tongues
within each of the great races of men.
6. All the divisions of the family of Noah had from the first the
domesticated animals and the principal arts of life, and enjoyed these
in a national capacity so soon as sufficiently numerous. The more
scattered tribes, wandering into fresh regions, and adopting the life
of hunters, lost the characteristics of civilization, and diverged
widely from the primitive languages. We should thus have, according to
the Hebrew ethnology, a central area presenting the principal stems of
all the three races in a permanently civilized state. All around this
area should lie aberrant and often barbarous tribes, differing most
widely from the original type in the more distant regions, and in
those least favorable to human health and subsistence. In these
outlying regions, secondary centres of civilization might grow up,
differing from that of the primitive centre, except in so far as the
common principles of human nature and intercommunication might prevent
this. All these conclusions, fairly deducible at once from the Mosaic
ethnology and the theory of dispersion from a centre, are perfectly in
accordance with observed facts, though in absolute contradiction to
prevalent ethnological conclusions, based on these facts in connection
with theories of development.
A multitude of Bible notices might easily be quoted illustrative of
these points, and also of the consistency of the Mosaic narrative with
itself. One of them may suffice here. Abraham, who is said by the
Jews to have been contemporary with Shem, as Menes by the Egyptians
with Ham, at least lived sufficiently near to the time of the rise of
the earliest nations to be taken as an illustration of this primitive
condition of society. He was not a patriarch of the first or second
rank, like Ham or Mizraim or Canaan, but a subordinate family leader
several removes from the survivors of the deluge. Yet his tribe
increases in comparatively few years to a considerable number. He is
treated as an equal by the monarchs of Egypt and Philistia. He
defeats, with a band of three or four hundred retainers, a confederacy
of four Euphratean kings representing the embryo state of the Persian
and Assyrian empires, and already relatively so strong that they have
overrun much of Western Asia. All this bespeaks in a most consistent
manner the rapid rise of many small nationalities, scattered over the
better parts of wide regions, and still in a feeble condition, though
inheriting from their ancestors an old civilization, and laying the
foundations of powerful states. If we attach any historical value
whatever to the narrative, it obviously implies that at a date of
about two thousand years before Christ the regions afterward occupied
by the oldest historic empires were still thinly peopled, and their
dominant races little more than feeble tribes. This farther
corresponds with the authentic history of all the ancient nations,
however these may have been extended by previous mythical periods.
About or shortly before the time of Abraham, Menes was draining for
the first time the swamps of Egypt, Ninus or Nimrod was founding the
Assyrian empire, the Phoenicians were founding Sidon, agriculture was
being introduced into China, the Vedas were being written in India,
the Persian monarchy was being founded; and, in short, all the
historical nations of the East were originating, and this apparently
by springing into being with an already formed civilization.
Such being the Hebrew account of the date and early history of man, it
may be proper here to compare it with such deductions from
archaeological and geological investigation as may seem to conflict
with it, and at the same time to make some comparisons with the
Turanian and Aryan traditions and speculations as to human origins.
The special lines of investigation important here are: 1. Early
historical records other than the Bible; 2. The diversity of human
languages; 3. The geological evidence afforded by remains of
prehistoric men found in caverns and other repositories. The last of
these is at present that which has attained the greatest development.
1. _Early Human History._--Had the human race everywhere preserved
historical records, we should have had some certain evidence as to the
places and times of origination of its tribes and peoples.
Unfortunately this has not been the case. All savage and barbarous
races, and many of those now civilized, have lost all records of their
early history. Most of the so-called ancient nations are comparatively
modern, and their history after a very short course loses itself in
uncertain tradition and mythical fancies. The only really ancient
nations that have given us in detail their own written history are the
Hebrews, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Hindoos, and the Chinese.
The last people, though professedly very ancient, trace their history
from a period of barbarism--a view confirmed by their physical
characters and the nature of their civilization; and on this account,
if no other, their history can not be considered as of much
archaeological value. According to their own records, their earliest
authentic history goes back to about 2800 B.C., and was preceded by a
prehistoric period of uncertain duration. The astronomical deductions
of Schlegel, which would extend their history to 17,000 years, are
evidently altogether unreliable.[112] The early Hindoo history is
palpably fabulous or distorted, and has been variously modified and
changed in comparatively modern times. There is one great and very
ancient people--the Egyptian--evidently civilized from the beginning
of all history, that have succeeded in transmitting to us, though only
in fragments, their primeval history; and of late years constant
additions have been made from inscribed tablets and monuments to our
knowledge of the ancient history of the Assyrians and Chaldeans.
The Egyptian history has been gathered first from sketches by Greek
travellers, and from fragments of the chronicles of Manetho, one of
the later Egyptian priests; and, secondly, from the inscriptions
deciphered on Egyptian monuments and papyri. It is still in a very
fragmentary and uncertain state, but has been used with considerable
effect to prove both the diversity of races of men and the pre-Noachic
antiquity of the species. The Egyptian, in features and physical
conformation, tended to the European form, just as the modern Fellahs
and Berbers do; but he had a dark complexion, a somewhat elongated
head and flattened lips, and certain negroid peculiarities in his
limbs. His language combined many of the peculiarities of the Semitic,
Aryan, and African tongues, indicating thereby great antiquity or else
great intermixture, but not, as some ethnographers demand, both; most
probably the former--the Egyptians being really the oldest civilized
people that we certainly know, and therefore, if languages have one
origin, likely to be near its root-stock.
The actual history of Egypt begins from Menes, the first human king, a
monarch, or rather tribal chief, who took up his abode in the flats
and fens of Lower Egypt, certainly not very long after the deluge. His
name has been translated "one who walks with Khem," or Ham; one,
therefore, who was contemporary with this great patriarch and god of
the Egyptians, which will place his time within a few centuries of the
Biblical flood. The date of Menes has been variously placed. In
correction of the ordinary Hebrew chronology, we have the following
attempts:
Josephus places his reign 2350 B.C.
Dr. Hales' calculation 2412
Manetho and the Monuments, as corrected by Syncellus {2712
and calculated by various archaeologists {to
{2782
Herodotus, astronomical reduction by Rennell 2890
Estimate by Gliddon in "Ancient Egypt" 2750
Bunsen, "Egypt's Place," etc. 4000
The truth may be somewhere near the mean of the shorter chronologies
given in the list.[113] That of Bunsen is liable to very grave
objections; more especially as he adds to it other views, altogether
unsupported by historical evidence, which would carry back the deluge
to 10,000 years B.C. It rests wholly on the chronology of Manetho, who
lived 300 years B.C.; and who, even if the Egyptians then possessed
authentic documents extending 3700 years before his time, may have
erred in his rendering of them; and is farther liable to grave
suspicions of having merely grouped the names on the monuments of his
country arbitrarily in Sothic cycles. Farther, they rest on an
interpretation of Manetho, which supposes his early dynasties to have
been successive, while good reasons have been found to prove that many
of them consist of contemporaneous petty sovereigns of parts of Egypt.
The early parts of Manetho's lists are purely mythical, and it is
impossible to fix the point where his authentic history commences. He
copied from monuments which have no consecutive dates, the precise age
of which could only be vaguely known even in his time, and which are
different in their statements in different localities. It is only by
making due allowance for these uncertainties that any historical value
can be attached to these earlier dynasties of Manetho. Yet Bunsen has
built on an uncertain interpretation of this writer, as handed down in
a very fragmentary and evidently garbled condition, and on the equally
or more uncertain chronology of Eratosthenes, a system differing from
all previous belief on the subject, from the Hebrew history, and from
all former interpretations of the monuments and Manetho.[114]
Discarding, therefore, in the mean time, this date, and the still
older one claimed by Mariette,[115] we may roughly estimate the date
of Menes as 2000 to 2500 years B.C.,[116] and proceed to state some of
the facts developed by Egyptologists.
One of the most striking of these is the proof that Egypt was a new
country in the days of Menes and several generations of his
successors. The monuments of this period show little of the
complicated idolatry, ritual, and caste system of later times, and are
deficient in evidence of the refinement and variety of art afterward
attained. They also show that these early monarchs were principally
engaged in dyking, and otherwise reclaiming the alluvial flats; an
evidence precisely of the same character with that which every
traveller sees in the more recently settled districts of Canada, where
the forest is giving way to the exertions of the farmer. Farther, in
this primitive period, known as the "old monarchy," few domestic
animals appear, and experiments seem to have been in progress to tame
others, natives of the country, as the hyena, the antelope, the stork.
Even the dog in the older dynasties is represented by one or at most
two varieties, and the prevalent one is a wolfish-looking animal akin
to the present wild or half-tamed dogs of the East.[117] The
Egyptians, too, of the earlier dynasties, are more homogeneous in
their appearance than those of the later, after conquest and migration
had introduced new races; and the earliest monumental notice referring
to Negro tribes does not appear until the 12th dynasty, about half-way
between the epoch of Menes and the Christian era, nor does any
representation of the Negro features occur until, at the earliest, the
17th dynasty. This allows ample time--one thousand years at the
least--for the development, under abnormal circumstances and
isolation, of all the most strongly marked varieties of man. Still
Egypt, even under the old monarchy, presents evidence of the
continuation of antediluvian culture.[118]
It is obvious, in short, that the whole aspect of early Egyptian
history presents to us a people already civilized taking possession of
that country at a period corresponding with that of the subsidence of
the Noachian deluge, and not finding there any remains of older
populations. Nor have any remains of such populations been found by
modern investigation.[119]
In Assyria the results of the recent discoveries, so well known
through many learned and popular works, strikingly confirm the Hebrew
chronology. They indicate no slow emergence from barbarism, but show
that in Assyria as in Egypt implements of stone and metal were used
together by a primitive people, already far advanced in civilization;
and the oldest historical names only carry us back to cities and
sovereigns of the Abrahamic age, while the story of the primitive
empire of Nimrod and the traditions of the deluge seem to have
survived in more or less mythical legends. The earliest Assyrian
monuments would seem to belong to a Turanian race, of which
comparatively little is known, but which may correspond with the
primitive Cushites of Biblical story. To these, it is true, Berosus
attaches a fabulous antiquity; but this is not confirmed by the
monuments. These, according to the latest facts disclosed by Smith,
Rawlinson, and others, appear to fix a date of about 1800 B.C. for the
foundation of the Assyrian monarchy proper, and the oldest previous
date given by Assurbampal, who reigned about B.C. 668 to 626, gives
1635 years before his time, or say 2280 B.C., as the date of an
Elamite king Kudarnankundi, who seems to be the leader of a primitive
tribe, one of the oldest in the region, and who has been conjectured
to have been the Chedorlaomer of Genesis, but was probably one of his
predecessors.
We gather from the Assyrian annals that the early Turanian kings,
while mound-builders like their kindred elsewhere, and acquainted with
metals and with the cuneiform writing, yet constituted comparatively
small nations, and were much occupied with hunting and other rude
sports, and with predatory expeditions, so as to answer very nearly to
the Biblical conception of the early Cushite kingdom of the valley of
the Euphrates, which was probably in the same stage of culture with
the nations that in a later period inhabited the valley of the
Mississippi, and are known as the Alleghans.
In connection with the early history of man, much importance has been
attached to the division of the early historic and prehistoric ages
into the periods of Stone, Bronze, and Iron, and of the former into a
Palaeolithic or ancient stone age, and a more modern or Neolithic stone
age. It is plain, however, that too great importance has been attached
to these distinctions, and that they express rather differences of
circumstances and of culture than of age, so that they have really no
bearing on the Biblical chronology.
If palaeolithic or rudely chipped implements are the oldest known, as
they not improbably were the first tools used by man, yet their use
has extended in the case of rude nations all the way up to the present
time; and in America and Northern Asia we know that their antiquity is
but of yesterday, and that they were used with highly finished
implements of bone, and of those softer stones that admit of being
polished. No certain line can therefore be drawn even locally between
a Neolithic and a Palaeolithic period, especially since in localities
where flint implements were extensively quarried and made, as on the
banks of rivers in Northern France and Southern England, and in such
places as "Grimes' Graves" and Cissbury in the latter country, where
mines were sunk in the chalk for the extraction of flints, it
necessarily happened that vast multitudes of unfinished or spoiled
implements and weapons were left on the ground, while the
better-formed specimens were for the most part taken away. This
conclusion is amply supported by similar localities in America, where
people well acquainted with many of the arts of life have left
quantities of strictly palaeolithic material. Wilson, Southall, and
other writers have accumulated so many examples of this that I think
the distinction of Palaeolithic and Neolithic ages must now be given up
by all investigators who possess ordinary judgment. A remarkable
instauce is the celebrated "Flint ridge" of Ohio, which was a great
quarry of flint for implements used by the ancient mound-builders, a
highly civilized race, as well as by the modern Indians. Here are
found countless multitudes of palaeolithic flint implements of all the
ordinary types, but which are merely the unfinished material of
workers capable of producing the most exquisite implements. There can
be scarcely a doubt that the palaeolithic implements of the European
gravels, in so far as they are the workmanship of man, are in like
manner merely the relics of old flint quarries.[120]
Possibly a more accurate measurement of time for particular regions of
the world might be deduced from the introduction of bronze and iron.
If the former was, as many antiquarians suppose, a local discovery in
Europe, and not introduced from abroad, it can give no measurement of
time whatever. In America, as the facts detailed by Dr. Wilson show,
while a bronze age existed in Peru, it was the copper age in the
Mississippi Valley, and the stone age elsewhere; and these conditions
might have co-existed for any length of time, and could give no
indication of relative dates. On the other hand, the iron introduced
by European commerce spread at once over the continent, and came into
use in the most remote tribes, and its introduction into America
clearly marks an historical epoch. With regard to bronze in Europe, we
must bear in mind that tin was to be procured only in England and
Spain, and in the latter in very small quantity; the mines of Saxony
do not seem to have been known till the Middle Ages. We must further
consider that tin ore is a substance not metallic in appearance, and
little likely to attract the attention of savages; and that, as we
gather from a hint of Pliny, it was probably first observed, in the
West at least, as stream tin, in the Spanish gold washings. Lastly,
when we place in connection with these considerations the fact that in
the earliest times of which we have certain knowledge, the tin trade
of Spain and England was monopolized by the Phoenicians, there seems
to be a strong probability that the extension of the trade of this
nation to the western Mediterranean really inaugurated the bronze
period. The only valid argument against this is the fact that moulds
and other indications of native bronze casting have been found in
Switzerland, Denmark, and elsewhere; but these show nothing more than
that the natives could recast bronze articles, just as the American
Indians can forge fish-hooks and knives out of nails and iron hoops.
Other considerations might be adduced in proof of this view, but our
limits will not permit us to refer to them. The important questions
still remain: When was this trade commenced, and how rapidly did it
extend itself from the sea-coast across Europe? The British tin trade
must have been in existence in the time of Herodotus, though his
notion of the locality was not more definite than that it was in the
extremity of the earth. The Phoenician settlements in the western
Mediterranean must have existed as early as the time of Solomon, when
"ships of Tarshish" was the general designation of seagoing ships for
long voyages. How long previously these colonies existed we do not
know; but considering the great scarcity and value of tin in those
very ancient times, we may infer that perhaps only the Spanish, and
not the British deposits were known thus early; or that the
Phoenicians had only indirect access to the latter. Perhaps we may fix
the time when these traders were able to supply the nations of Europe
with abundance of bronze in exchange for their products, at, say 1000
to 1200 B.C., as the earliest probable period; and possibly from one
to two centuries would be a sufficient allowance for the complete
penetration of the trade throughout Europe. But of course wars or
migrations might retard or accelerate the process; and there may have
been isolated spots in which a partial stone period extended up to
those comparatively recent times in which first the Greek trade, and
afterward the entire overthrow of the Carthaginian power by the
Romans, terminated forever the age of bronze and substituted the age
of iron. This would leave, according to our ordinary chronologies, at
least ten or fifteen centuries for the postdiluvian stone period in
Europe and Western Asia, a time quite sufficient in our view for all
that part of it represented by such monuments as the Danish
shell-heaps or the platform habitations of the Swiss lakes; leaving
the remains of the prehistoric caverns and river gravels for the
antediluvian period. A few facts in illustration of these points, and
also of the Biblical history, may be mentioned here.
We know perfectly that the early Chaldeans of the Euphratean valley
were acquainted with the use of metals--bronze certainly, and at a
very early date iron; yet flint knives and other implements of stone
are found under circumstances which show that they were used in the
palmy days of the Assyrian empire. The inhabitants of Egypt were
acquainted with bronze and iron long before the date of the Exodus,
yet the Egyptians used stone knives for some purposes up to a
comparatively modern time. Joshua used stone knives for the purpose of
circumcision; and according to Herodotus there were Ethiopians in the
army of Xerxes who used stone-tipped arrows. If any antiquarian were
to stumble on the "hill of the foreskins"--a mound under which were
buried in all probability the multitudinous flint flakes used in the
circumcision of the thousands of Israel--or the grave in which some of
the Ethiopian auxiliaries of Xerxes were buried with their flint
arrow-heads and javelins of antelopes' horn, how absurd would be the
inference that these repositories were of the palaeolithic age. Nay, so
late as 1870 a traveller was informed that the Bagos, a people of
Abyssinia, still made and used stone hatchets and flint knives.[121]
In Europe we find reason to believe that the Ligurians of Northwestern
Italy were flint-folk of very rude type until they were conquered by
the Gauls about 400 B.C.[122] Though the Gauls, Britons, and Germans
of the age of Julius Caesar had iron weapons, yet it is evident that
the metal was very scarce, and that bronze was more common; and in
confirmation of this it is found that in the trenches before Alize,
the Alesia of Caesar, where the final struggle of the Roman general
with Vercingetorix took place, weapons of stone, bronze, and iron are
intermixed. All over the more northern parts of Europe there is the
best reason to believe that the use of stone and bronze continued to a
much later period, and locally until long after the Christian era. It
is clear that such facts as these must greatly modify our ideas of the
probable age of the Swiss lake villages, and should induce the
greatest caution in claiming any special antiquity for particular
classes of implements.
One of the most remarkable discoveries of modern times is that of the
site of ancient Troy by Dr. Schliemann, and it affords clear and
decisive evidence as to the historic value of the ages to which we
have referred.
Troy was destroyed by the Greeks perhaps about 1300 B.C., and we know
from Homer that this was in what for the Greeks and Trojans may
properly be termed the copper age, weapons and armor of that metal
being in common use, and also the mode of burial by cremation. We may
well suppose that at that early date the stone age was still in full
force in Northern Europe and Asia, and in the mountains of
Switzerland; and as the tin mines of England had not yet been reached,
bronze was scarce and dear even in Eastern Europe and Asia. Now
Schliemann has disinterred the undoubted Trojan Ilium on the hill of
Hissarlik; but he finds it to be only one of several buried cities,
and the succession of strata will be most clearly seen in the section
on the following page, compiled from his clear and circumstantial
descriptions. It is needless to say that this presents a succession of
the stone age to one of comparatively high civilization. It also forms
an epitome of that of the whole East, and of primitive man in general,
in some very important respects. We have first, at a date probably
coeval with that of the earliest monarchies of Assyria and Egypt, a
primitive people whose arts and mode of life remind us strongly of the
American Toltecans and Peruvians.[123] Schliemann supposes them to
have been Aryan, but they were more probably of Turanian race. They
must have occupied the site for a very long time. They were succeeded
by a more cultivated people of fine physical organization, yet
possibly still Turanians or primitive Aryans, who by trade or plunder
had accumulated large stores of metallic wealth, and had made advances
in the arts of life placing them on a level with the early Phoenicians
and Egyptians, with whom they probably had intercourse. These
=====================================================================
|Surface. |
| |
|Fifth stratum to 6-1/2 feet. |The Greek Ilium, with buildings
| |and objects of art characteristic
| |of the Hellenic civilization of
| |historic periods.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|Fourth stratum to 13 feet. |A second barbarous people, but
| |probably allied to the first.
| |Very coarse pottery. Implements
| |and weapons of copper or bronze--
| |stone knives and saws.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|Third stratum to 23 feet. |Barbarous people occupying the
| |site of Troy. Rude stone
| |implements and rude pottery.
| |Buildings of small stones and clay.
| |Some objects of pottery found here
| |would on American sites be regarded
| |as probably tobacco-pipes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|Second stratum to 33 feet. |Homeric Troy. Implements and
| |weapons of copper, bronze, and
| |stone. Pottery, some of it of
| |Peruvian and ancient Cypriot types.
| |Fine gold jewelry, and gold and
| |silver vessels. Armor similar to
| |that described by Homer. Stone
| |buildings and walls. This city had
| |been sacked and burned.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| First stratum to 46 or 53 feet.|Primitive or prehistoric Troy.
| |Stone implements, polished and
| |chipped. Millstones, copper nails,
| |pottery--some with patterns
| |curiously resembling those of
| |America--bone implements,
| Rock. |terra-cotta disks. Stone buildings.
=====================================================================
were the Trojans of the Homeric poems, and the destruction of their
city was probably in the first instance celebrated in their own native
songs, which Homer at a date but little later[124] wove into his
magnificent poem, and idealized and exaggerated. The Trojans
worshipped an owl-headed goddess--the Athena of the Homeric poems;
and from symbols found are believed also to have had the worship of a
sacred tree, and of fire or of the Sun. All of these are widespread
superstitions over both the Old and New World. But while Troy
flourished there were barbarous nations not far off still in the stone
age; and when the city had fallen, these, possibly in successive
hordes, took possession of the fertile plain and used the old city as
their stronghold, perhaps till the foundation of the Greek city about
650 B.C. I have sketched in some detail these interesting discoveries,
as they so clearly illustrate an actual succession of ages, and so
conclusively show the uncertainty of the classification into ages of
stone and metal, except when taken in connection with the precise
circumstances of each locality.
I have referred above only to the question of historic or postdiluvian
man. We have still to consider what remains exist of antediluvian man.
These may be studied in connection with our third head of geological
evidences of man's antiquity; for if the Mosaic narrative be true, the
diluvial catastrophe must have constituted a physical separation
between historic man and prehistoric; since, in so far as antediluvian
ages are concerned, all are prehistoric or mythical everywhere except
in the sacred history itself. Antediluvian men may thus in geology be
Pleistocene as distinguished from modern, or Palaeocosmic as
distinguished from Neocosmic.[125]
2. _Language in Relation to the Antiquity of Man._--In many animals
the voice has a distinctive character; but in man it has an importance
altogether peculiar. The gift of speech is one of his sole
prerogatives, and identity in its mode of exercise is not only the
strongest proof of similarity of psychical constitution, but more than
any other character marks identity of origin. The tongues of men are
many and various; and at first sight this diversity may, as indeed it
often does, convey the impression of radical diversity of race. But
modern philological investigations have shown many and unexpected
links of connection in vocabulary or grammatical structure, or both,
between languages apparently the most dissimilar. I do not here refer
to the vague and fanciful parallels with which our ancestors were
often amused, but to the results of sober and scientific inquiry.
"Nothing," says Professor Max Mueller, "necessitates the admission of
different independent beginnings for the material elements of the
Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan branches of speech; nay, it is possible
even now to point out radicals which, under various changes and
disguises, have been current in these three branches ever since their
first separation." Of the truth of this I have convinced myself by
some original investigation, and also of the farther truth that of
this radical unity of all human tongues there is more full evidence
than many philologists are disposed to admit, and that the results of
future study must be to connect more and more with each other the
several main stems of language. Whether this results merely from the
psychical unity of the human race, or from the historical derivation
of languages from one root, is not so material as the fact of unity;
but that the latter is implied it would not be difficult to show.[126]
Let us examine for a little these results as they are presented to us
by Latham, Mueller, Bunsen, and other modern philologists.
A convenient starting-point is afforded by the great group of
languages known as the Indo-European, Japhetic, or Aryan. From the
Ganges to the west coast of Ireland, through Indian, Persian, Greek,
Italian, German, Celt, runs one great language--the Sanscrit and the
dark Hindoo at one extreme, the Erse and the xanthous Celt at the
other. No one now doubts the affinity of this great belt of languages.
No one can pretend that any one of these nations learned its language
from another. They are all decided branches of a common stock. Lying
in and near this area are other nations--as the Arabs, the Syrians,
the Jews--speaking languages differing in words and structure--the
Semitic tongues. Do these mark a different origin? The philologists
answer in the negative, pointing to the features of resemblance which
still remain, and above all to certain intermediate tongues of so high
antiquity that they are rather to be regarded as root-stocks from
which other languages diverged than as mixtures. The principal of
these is the ancient Egyptian, represented by the inscriptions on the
monuments of that wonderful people, and by the more modern Coptic,
which, according to Bunsen and Latham, presents decided affinities to
both the great classes previously mentioned, and may be regarded as
strictly intermediate in its character. It has accordingly been
designated by the term Sub-Semitic.[127] But it shares this character
with all or nearly all the other African languages, which bear strong
marks of affinity to the Egyptian and Semitic tongues. On this
subject Dr. Latham says, "That the uniformity of languages throughout
Africa is greater than it is either in Asia or in Europe, is a
statement to which I have not the least hesitation in committing
myself."[128] To the north the Indo-European area is bounded by a
great group of semi-barbarous populations, mostly with Mongolian
features, and speaking languages which have been grouped as Turanian.
These Turanian languages, on the one hand, graduate without any break
into those of the Esquimaux and American Indians; on the other,
according to Mueller and Latham, they are united, though less
distinctly, with the Semitic and Japhetic tongues. They not improbably
represent in more or less altered forms the most primitive stock of
language from which both the Semitic and Japhetic groups have
branched. Another great area on the coasts and in the islands of the
Pacific is overspread by the Malay, which, through the populations of
Transgangetic India, connects itself with the great Indo-European
line. Mr. Edkins, in his remarkable book on "China's Place in
Philology," has collected a large amount of fact tending to show that
the early Chinese in its monosyllabic radicals presents root-forms
traceable into all the stocks of human speech in the Old World; and
the American languages would have furnished him with similar lines of
affinity. If we regard physical characters, manners, and customs, and
mythologies, as well as mere language, it is much easier thus to link
together nearly all the populations of the globe. In investigations of
this kind, it is true, the links of connection are often delicate and
evanescent; yet they have conveyed to the ablest investigators the
strong impression that the phenomena are rather those of division of a
radical language than of union of several radically distinct.
This impression is farther strengthened when we regard several results
incidental to these researches. Latham has shown that the languages of
men may be regarded as arranged in lines of divergence, the extreme
points of which are Fuego, Tasmania, Easter Island; and that from all
these points they converge to a common centre in Western Asia, where
we find a cluster of the most ancient and perfect languages; and even
Haeckel is obliged to adopt in his map of the affiliation of races of
men a similar scheme, though he, without any good historical or
scientific evidence, extends it back into the imaginary lost continent
of Lemuria. Farther, the languages of the various populations differ
in proceeding from these centres in a manner pointing to degeneracy
such as is likely to occur in small and rude tribes separating from a
parent stock. These lines of radiation follow the most easy and
probable lines of migration of the human race spreading from one
centre. It must also be observed that in the primary migration of men,
there must of necessity have been at its extreme limits outlying and
isolated tribes, placed in circumstances in which language would very
rapidly change; especially as these tribes, migrating or driven
forward, would be continually arriving at new regions presenting new
circumstances and objects. When at length the utmost limit in any
direction was reached, the inroads of new races of population would
press into close contact these various tribes with their different
dialects. Where the distance was greatest before reaching this limit,
we might expect, as in America, to find the greatest mutual variety
and amount of difference from the original stock. After the primary
migration had terminated, the displacements arising from secondary
migrations and conquests, would necessarily complicate the matter by
breaking up the original gradations of difference, and thereby
rendering lines of migration difficult to trace.
Taking all these points into the account, along with the known
tendencies of languages in all circumstances to vary, it is really
wonderful that philology is still able to give so decided indications
of unity.
There is, in the usual manner of speaking of these subjects, a source
of misapprehension, which deserves special mention in this place. The
Hebrew Scriptures derive all the nations of the ancient world from
three patriarchs, and the names of these have often been attached to
particular races of men and their languages; but it should never be
supposed that these classifications are likely to agree with the Bible
affiliation. They may to a certain extent do so, but not necessarily
or even probably. In the nature of the case, those portions of these
families which remained near the original centre, and in a civilized
state, would retain the original language and features comparatively
unchanged. Those which wandered far, fell into barbarism, or became
subjected to extreme climatic influences, would vary more in all
respects. Hence any general classification, whether on physical or
philological characters, will be likely to unite, as in the Caucasian
group of Cuvier, men of all the three primitive families, while it
will separate the outlying and aberrant portions from their main stems
of affiliation. Want of attention to this point has led to much
misconception; and perhaps it would be well to abandon altogether
terms founded on the names of the sons of Noah, except where
historical affiliation is the point in question. It would be well if
it were understood that when the terms Semitic, Japhetic,[129] and
Hametic are used, direct reference is made to the Hebrew ethnology;
and that, where other arrangements are adopted, other terms should be
used. It is obviously unfair to apply the terms of Moses in a
different way from that in which he uses them. A very prevalent error
of this kind has been to apply the term Japhetic to a number of
nations not of such origin according to the Bible; and another of more
modern date is to extend the term Semitic to all the races descended
from Ham, because of resemblance of language. It should be borne in
mind that, assuming the truth of the Scriptural affiliation, there
should be a "central" group of races and languages where the whole of
the three families meet, and "sporadic"[130] groups representing the
changes of the outlying and barbarous tribes.
While, however, all the more eminent philologists adhere to the
original unity of language, they are by no means agreed as to the
antiquity of man; and some, as for instance Latham and Dr. Max Mueller,
are disposed to claim an antiquity for our species far beyond that
usually admitted. In so far as this affects the Bible history, it is
important, inasmuch as this would appear to limit the possible
antiquity of all languages to the time of the deluge. The date of this
event has been variously estimated, on Biblical grounds, at from 1650
B.C. (Usher) to 3155 B.C. (Josephus and Hales); but the longest of
these dates does not appear to satisfy the demands of philology. The
reason of this demand is the supposed length of time required to
effect the necessary changes. The subject is one on which definite
data can scarcely be obtained. Languages change now, even when reduced
to a comparatively stable form by writing. They change more rapidly
when men migrate into new climates, and are placed in contact with new
objects. The English, the Dutch, and the German were perhaps all at
the dawn of the mediaeval era Maeso-Gothic. At the same rate of change,
allowing for greater barbarism and greater migrations, they may very
well have been something not far from Egyptian or Sanscrit 2000 years
before Christ. The truth is that present rates of variation afford no
criterion for the changes that must occur in the languages of small
and isolated tribes lapsing into or rising from barbarism, possessing
few words, and constantly requiring to name new objects and until some
ratio shall have been established between these conditions and those
of modern languages, fixed by literature and by a comparatively
stationary state of society, it is useless to make any demands for
longer time on this ground.[131]
Even in the present day, Moffat informs us that in South Africa the
separation of parts of a tribe, for even a few months, may produce a
notable difference of dialect. If we take the existing languages of
civilized men whose history is known, we shall find that it is
impossible to trace many of them back as far as the Christian era, and
when we have passed over even half that interval, they become so
different as to be unintelligible to those who now speak them. Where
there are exceptions to this, they arise entirely from the effects of
literature and artificial culture. While, therefore, there is good
ground in philology for the belief in one primitive language, there
seems no absolute necessity to have recourse even to the confusion of
tongues at Babel to explain the diversities of language.[132] Farther,
the Bible carries back the Semitic group of languages at least to the
time of the Deluge, but it does not seem necessary on the mere ground
of antediluvian names, to carry it any farther back, and the Assyrian
inscriptions show the coexistence of Turanian and Semitic tongues at
the dawn of history in the region of the Euphrates and Tigris. One or
other of these--or a monosyllabic language underlying it--was probably
an antediluvian tongue, and the other a very early derivative; and
both history and philology would assign the precedence to the Turanian
language, which was probably most akin to that which had descended
from antediluvian times, and which at that early period of dispersion
indicated in the Bible story of Babel, had begun to throw off its two
great branches of the Aryan and Semitic languages. These, proceeding
in two dissimilar lines of development, continue to exist to this day
along with the surviving portions of the uncultivated Turanian speech.
To this point, however, we may return under another head.