Chapter XXI: Appendix: A.--True and False Evolution (3)

4. Some characters are more subject to variation than others. In the higher animals variation takes place very readily in the color and texture of the skin and its appendages. This, from its direct relation to the external world, and ready sympathy with the condition of the digestive organs, might be expected to take the lead. In those domesticated animals which are little liable to vary in other respects, as the cat and duck, the color very readily changes. Next may be placed the stature and external proportions, and the form of such appendages as the external ear and tail. All these characters are very variable in domestic animals. Next we may place the form of the skull, which, though little variable in the wild state, is nearly always changed by domestication. Psychological functions, as the so-called instincts of animals, are also very liable to change, and to have these changes perpetuated in races. Very remarkable instances of this have been collected by Sir C. Lyell[165] and Dr. Prichard. Lastly, important physiological characters, as the period of gestation, etc., and the structure of the internal organs connected with the functions of nutrition, respiration, etc., are little liable to change, and remain unaffected by the most extreme variations in other points; and it is, no doubt, in these more essential and internal parts that the tendency survives to return under favorable circumstances to the original type.

5. Varieties or races of the same species are fully reproductive with each other, which is not the case with true species. Mutual sterility of varieties of the same species is an exceptional peculiarity, if it ever truly exist; and, on the other hand, the cross-fertilization of varieties of the same species, whether in animals or plants, tends to vigorous life, and also to return to the primitive or average type. On the other hand, intermixture of distinct species rarely, if ever, occurs freely in nature. It is generally a result of artificial contrivance. Again, hybrids produced from species known to be distinct are either wholly barren, or barren _inter se_, reproducing only with one of the original stocks, and rapidly returning to it; or if ever fertile _inter se_, which is somewhat doubtful, rapidly run out. It has been maintained by Pallas and others, and Darwin leans to this idea, that there is still another possibility, namely, that of the perfect and continued fertility of such mixed races, especially after long domestication; but their proofs are derived principally from the intermixture of the races of dogs and of poultry, which are cases actually in dispute at present, as to the original unity or diversity of the so-called species.

If we apply these considerations to man, our conclusion must be that, even in his bodily frame, he is not merely specifically but ordinally distinct from other animals, and that the differences between races of men are varietal rather than specific. This view is confirmed by the following facts:

1. The case of man is not that of a wild animal; and it presents many points of difference even from the case of the domesticated lower animals. According to the Bible history, man was originally fitted to subsist on fruits, to inhabit a temperate climate, and to be exempt from the necessity of destroying or contending with other animals. This view unquestionably accords very well with his organization. He still subsists principally on vegetable food, is most numerous in the warmer regions of the earth; and, when so subsisting in these regions, is naturally peaceful and timid. On the whole, however, his habits of life are artificial--more so than those of any domesticated animal. He is, therefore, in the conditions most favorable to variation. Again, man possesses more than merely animal instincts. His mental powers permit him to devise means of locomotion, of protection, of subsistence, far superior to those of any mere animal; and his dominant will, insatiable in its desires, bends the bodily frame to uses and exposes it to external influences more various than any inferior animal can dream of. Man is also more educable and plastic in his constitution than other animals, owing both to his being less hemmed in by unchanging instincts, and to his physical frame being less restricted in its adaptations. If a single species, he is also more widely distributed than any other; and there are even single races which exceed in their extent of distribution nearly all the inferior animals. Nor is there anything in his structure specially to limit him to plains, or hills, or forests, or coasts, or inland regions. All the causes which we can suppose likely to produce variation thus meet in man, who is himself the producer of most of the distinct races that we observe in the lower animals. If, therefore, we condescend to compare man with these creatures, it must be under protest that what we learn from them must be understood with reference to his greater capabilities.

2. The races of men are deficient in some of the essential characters of species. It is true that they are reproduced with considerable permanency; though a great many cases of spontaneous change, of atavism, or return to the character of progenitors, and of slow variation under changed conditions, have been recorded. But the most manifest deficiency in true specific characters is in the invariable shading-off of one race into another, and in the entire failure of those who maintain the distinction of species in the attempt accurately to define their number and limits. The characters run into each other in such a manner that no natural arrangement based on the whole can apparently be arrived at; and when one particular ground is taken, as color, or shape of skull, the so-called species have still no distinct limits; and all the arrangements formed differ from each other, and from the deductions of philology and history. Thus, from the division of Virey into two species, on the entirely arbitrary ground of facial angle, to that of Bory de St. Vincent into fifteen, we have a great number and variety of distinctions, all incapable of zoological definition; or, if capable of definition, eminently unnatural. There are, in short, no missing links between the varieties of men corresponding to that which obtains between man and lower animals.

3. The races of men differ in those points in which the higher animals usually vary with the greatest facility. The physical characters chiefly relied on have been color, character of hair, and form of skull, together with diversities in stature and general proportion. These are precisely the points in which our domestic races are most prone to vary. The manner in which these characters differ in the races of men may be aptly illustrated by a few examples of the arrangements to which they lead.

Dr. Pickering, of the U. S. Exploring Expedition[166]--who does not, however, commit himself to any specific distinctions--has arranged the various races of men on the very simple and obvious ground of color. He obtains in this way four races--the White, the Brown, the Blackish-brown, the Black. The distinction is easy; but it divides races historically, philologically, and structurally alike; and unites those which, on other grounds, would be separated. The white race includes the Hamite Abyssinian, the Semitic Arabian, the Japhetic Greek. The Ethiopian or Berber is separated from the cognate Abyssinian, and the dark Hindoo from the paler races speaking like him tongues allied to the Sanscrit. The Papuan, on the other hand, takes his place with the Hindoo; while the allied Australian must be content to rank with the Negro; and the Hottentot is promoted to a place beside the Malay. It is unnecessary to pursue any farther the arrangement of this painstaking and conscientious inquirer. It conclusively demonstrates that the color of the varieties of the human race must be arbitrary and accidental, and altogether independent of unity or diversity of origin.

Some use has been made, by the advocates of diversity of species, of the quality of the hair in the different races. That of the Negro is said to be flat in its cross section--in this respect approaching to wool; that of the European is oval; and that of the Mongolian and American round.[167] The subject has as yet been very imperfectly investigated; but its indications point to no greater variety than that which occurs in many domesticated animals--as, for instance, the hog and sheep. Nay, Dr. Carpenter states[168]--and the writer has satisfied himself of the fact by his own observation--that it does not exceed the differences in the hair from different parts of the body of the same individual. The human hair, like that of mammals in general, consists of three tissues: an outer cortical layer, marked by transverse striae, having in man the aspect of delicate lines, but in many other animals assuming the character of distinct joints or prominent serrations; a layer of elongated, fibrous cells, to which the hair owes most of its tenacity; and an inner cylinder of rounded cells. In the proportionate development of these several parts, in the quantity of coloring matter present, and in the transverse section, the human hair differs very considerably in different parts of the body. It also differs very markedly in individuals of different complexions. Similar but not greater differences obtain in the hair of the scalp in different races; but the flatness of the Negro's hair connects itself inseparably with the oval of the hair of the ordinary European, and this with the round observed in some other races. It generally holds that curled and frizzled hair is flatter than that which is lank and straight; but this is not constant, for I have found that the waved or frizzled hair of the New Hebrideans, intermediate apparently between the Polynesians and Papuans, is nearly circular in outline, and differs from European hair mainly in the greater development of the fibrous structure and the intensity of the color. Large series of comparisons are required; but those already made point to variation rather than specific difference. Some facts also appear to indicate very marked differences as occurring in the same race from constant exposure or habitual covering; and also the occasional appearance of the most abnormal forms, without apparent cause, in individuals. The differences depending on greater or less abundance or vigor of growth of the hair are obviously altogether trivial, when compared with such examples as the hairless dogs of Chili and hairless cattle of Brazil, or even with the differences in this respect observed in individuals of the same race of men.

Confessedly the most important differences of the races of men are those of the skeleton, in all parts of which variations of proportion occur, and are of course more or less communicated to the muscular investments. Of these, as they exist in the pelvis, limbs, etc., I need say nothing; for, manifest though they are, they all fall far within the limits of variation in familiar domestic animals, and also of hereditary malformation or defect of development occurring in the European nations, and only requiring isolation for its perpetuation as a race. The differences in the skull merit more attention, for it is in this and in its enclosed brain that man most markedly differs from the lower animals, as well as race from race. It is in the form rather than in the mere dimensions of the skull that we should look for specific differences; and here, adopting the vertical method of Blumenbach as the most characteristic and valuable, we find a greater or less antero-posterior diameter--a greater or less development of the jaws and bones of the face. The skull of the normal European, or Caucasian of Cuvier, is round oval; and the jaws and cheek-bones project little beyond its anterior margin, when viewed from above. The skull of the Mongolian of Cuvier is nearly round, and the cheek-bones and jaws project much more strongly in front and at the sides. The Negro skull is lengthened from back to front; the jaws project strongly, or are prognathous; but the cheek-bones are little prominent. For the extremes of these varieties, Retzius proposed the names of brachy-kephalic or short-headed, and dolicho-kephalic or long-headed, which have come into general use. The differences indicated by these terms are of great interest, as distinctive marks of many of the unmixed races of men; but, when pushed to extremes, lead to very incorrect generalizations--as Professor D. Wilson has well shown in his paper on the supposed uniformity of type in the American races--a doctrine which he fully refutes by showing that within a very narrow geographical range this primitive and unmixed race presents very great differences of cranial form.[169] Exclusive of idiots, artificially compressed heads, and deformities, the differences between the brachy-kephalic and dolicho-kephalic heads range from equality in the parietal and longitudinal diameter to the proportion of about 14 to 24. As stated by some ethnologists, these differences appear quite characteristic and distinct; but, so soon as we attempt any minute discrimination, all confidence in them as specific characters disappears. In our ordinary European races similar differences, and nearly as extensive, occur. The dolicho-kephalic head is really only an immature form perpetuated; and appears not only in the Negro, but in the Esquimau, and in certain ancient and modern Celtic races. The brachy-kephalic head, in like manner, is characteristic of certain tribes and portions of tribes of Americans, but not of all; of many northern Asiatic nations; of certain Celtic and Scandinavian tribes; and often appears in the modern European races as an occasional character. Farther, as Retzius has well shown, the long heads and prominent jaws are not always associated with each other; and his classification is really the testimony of an able observer against the value of these characters. He shows that the Celtic and Germanic races (in part) have long heads and straight jaws; while the Negroes, Australians, Oceanians, Caribs, Greenlanders, etc., have long heads and prominent jaws. The Laplanders, Finns, Turks, Sclaves, Persians, etc., have short heads and straight jaws; while the Tartars, Mongolians, Incas, Malays, Papuans, etc., have short heads and prominent jaws.

Another defect in the argument often based on the diverse forms of heads is its want of acknowledgment of the ascertained and popularly known fact that these forms in different tribes or individuals of the same race are markedly influenced by culture and habits of life. In all races ignorance and debasement tend to induce a prognathous form, while culture tends to the elevation of the nasal bones, to an orthognathous condition of the jaws, and to an elevation and expansion of the cranium.[170]

Again, no adequate allowance has been made in the case of these forms of skull for the influence of modes of nurture in infancy. Dr. Morton, observing that the brachy-kephalic American skull was often unequal sided, and the occiput much flattened, suggests that this is "an exaggeration of the natural form produced by the pressure of the cradle-board in common use among the American natives." Dr. Wilson has noticed the same unsymmetrical character in brachy-kephalic skulls in British barrows, and has suspected some artificial agency in infancy; and says, in reference to the American instances, "I think it extremely probable that further investigation will tend to the conclusion that the vertical or flattened occiput, instead of being a typical characteristic, pertains entirely to the class of artificial modifications of the natural cranium familiar to the American ethnologist."

While the points in which the races of men vary are those in which lower animals are most liable to undergo change, the several races display a remarkable constancy in those which are usually less variable. Prichard and Carpenter have well shown this in relation to physiological points, as, for instance, the age of arriving at maturity, the average and extreme duration of life, and the several periods connected with reproduction. The coincidence in these points alone is by many eminent physiologists justly regarded as sufficient evidence of the unity of the species.

4. It may also be affirmed, in relation to the varieties of man, that they do not exceed in amount or extent those observed in the lower animals. If with Frederick Cuvier, Dr. Carpenter, and many other naturalists, we regard the dog as a single species, descended in all probability from the wolf, we can have no hesitation in concluding that this animal far exceeds man in variability.[171] But this is denied by many, not without some show of reason; and we may, therefore, select some animal respecting which little doubt can be entertained. Perhaps the best example is the common hog (_Sus scrofa_), an undoubted descendant of the wild boar, and a creature especially suitable for comparison with man, inasmuch as its possible range of food is very much the same with his, which is not the case with any other of our domesticated animals; and as its headquarters as a species are in the same regions which have supported the greatest and oldest known communities of men. We may exclude from our comparison the Chinese hog, by some regarded as a distinct species (_Sus Indicus_), though no wild original is known, and it breeds freely with the common hog. The color of the domestic hog varies, like that of man, from white to black; and in the black hog the skin as well as the hair partakes of the dark color. The abundance and quality of the hair vary extremely; the stature and form are equally variable, much more so than in man. Blumenbach long ago remarked that the difference between the skull of the ordinary domestic hog and that of the wild boar is quite equal to that observed between the Negro and European skulls. Darwin shows that it is much greater, and illustrates this by an amusing pair of portraits. The breeds of swine even differ in directions altogether unparalleled in man. For instance, both in America and Europe solid-hoofed swine have originated and become a permanent variety; and there is said to be another variety with five toes.[172] These are the more remarkable, because, in the American instances, there can be no doubt that it is the common hog which has assumed these abnormal forms.

5. All varieties or races of men intermix freely, in a manner which strongly indicates specific unity. We hold here, as already stated, that no good case of a permanent race arising from intermixture of distinct species of the lower animals has been adduced; but there is another fact in relation to this subject which the advocates of specific diversity would do well to study. Even in varieties of those domestic animals which are certainly specifically identical, as the hog, the sheep, the ox--although crosses between the varieties may easily be produced--they are not readily maintained, and sometimes tend to die out. What are called good crosses lead to improved energy, and continual breeding in and in of the same variety leads to degeneracy and decay; but, on the other hand, crosses of certain varieties are proved by experience to be of weakly and unproductive quality; and every practical book on cattle contains remarks on the difficulty of keeping up crosses without intermixture with one of the pure breeds. It would thus appear that very unlike varieties of the same species display in this respect, in an imperfect manner, the peculiarities of distinct species. It is on this principle that I would in part account for some of the exceptional facts which occur in mixed races of men.

What, then, are the facts in the case of man? In producing crosses of distinct species, as in the case of the horse and ass, breeders are obliged to resort to expedients to overcome the natural repugnance to such intermixture. In the case of even the most extreme varieties of man, if such repugnance exists, it is voluntarily overcome, as the slave population of America testifies abundantly. By far the greater part of the intermixtures of races of men tend to increase of vital energy and vigor, as in the case of judicious crosses of some domestic animals. Where a different result occurs, we usually find sufficient secondary causes to account for it. I shall refer to but one such case--that of the half-breed American Indian. In so far as I have had opportunities of observation or inquiry, these people are prolific, much more so than the unmixed Indian. They are also energetic, and often highly intellectual; but they are of delicate constitution, especially liable to scrofulous diseases, and therefore not long-lived. Now this is precisely the result which often occurs in domestic animals, where a highly cultivated race is bred with one that is of ruder character and training; and it very probably results from the circumstance that the progeny may inherit too much of the delicacy of the one parent to endure the hardships congenial to the other; or, on the other hand, too much of the wild nature of the ruder parent to subsist under the more delicate nurture of the more cultivated. This difficulty does not apply to the intermixture of the Negro and the European, though between the pure races this is a cross too abrupt to be likely to be in the first instance successful.

6. The races of man may have originated in the same manner with the breeds of our domesticated animals. There are many facts which render it probable that they did originate in this way. Take color, for instance. The fair varieties of man occur only in the northern temperate zone, and chiefly in the equable climates of that zone. In extreme climates, even when cold, dusky and yellow colors appear. The black and blackish-brown colors are confined to the inter-tropical regions, and appear in such portions of all the great races of mankind as have been long domiciled there. Diet and degree of exposure have also evidently very much to do with form, stature, and color. The deer-eating Chippewayan of certain districts of North America is a better developed man than his compatriots who subsist principally on rabbits and such meaner fare; and excess of carbonaceous food, and deficiency of perspiration or of combustion in the lungs, appear everywhere to darken the skin.[173] The Negro type in its extreme form is peculiar to low and humid river valleys of tropical Africa. In Australasia similar characters appear in men of a very different race in similar circumstances. The Mongolian type reappears in South Africa. The Esquimau is like the Fuegian. The American Indian, both of South and North America, resembles the Mongol; but in several of the middle regions of the American continent men appear who approximate to the Malay. Everywhere and in all races coarse features and deviations from the oval form of skull are observed in rude populations. Where men have sunk into a child-like simplicity, the elongated forms prevail. Where they have become carnivorous, aggressive, and actively barbarous, the brachy-kephalic forms abound. These and many other considerations tend to the conclusion that these varieties are inseparably connected with external conditions. It may still be asked--Were not the races created as they are, with especial reference to these conditions? I answer no--because the differences are of a character in every respect like those that appear in other true species as the results of influences from without.

Farther, not only have we varieties of man resulting from the slow operation of climatal and other conditions, but we have the sudden development of races. One remarkable instance may illustrate my meaning. It is the hairy family of Siam, described by Mr. Crawford and Mr. Yule.[174] The peculiarities here consisted of a fine silky coat of hair covering the face and less thickly the whole body, with at the same time the entire absence of the canine and molar teeth. The person in whom these characters originated was sent to Ava as a curiosity when five years old. He married at twenty-two, his wife being an ordinary Burmese woman. One of two children who survived infancy had all the characters of the father. This was a girl; and on her marriage the same characters reappeared in one of two boys constituting her family when seen by Mr. Yule. Here was a variety of a most extreme character, originating without apparent cause, and capable of propagation for three generations, even when crossed with the ordinary type. Had it originated in circumstances favorable to the preservation of its purity, it might have produced a tribe or nation of hairy men, with no teeth except incisors. Such a tribe would, with some ethnologists, have constituted a new and very distinct species; and any one who had suggested the possibility of its having originated within a few generations as a variety would have been laughed at for his credulity. It is unnecessary to cite any further instances. I merely wish to insist on the necessity of a rigid comparison of the variations which appear in man, either suddenly or in a slow or secular manner, with the characters of the so-called races or species.

7. If we turn from the merely physical constitution of man, and inquire as to his psychical and spiritual endowments, it would be easy to show, as Dr. Carpenter and others have done, in opposition to Darwin, that on the one hand an impassable barrier separates man from the lower animals, and that on the other there is an essential unity among the races of men. But this subject I have discussed fully in the concluding chapters of my "Story of the Earth."

If man is thus so very variable, and if many of his leading varieties have existed for a very long time, does not the fact that we have but one species afford very strong evidence that species change only within fixed limits, and do not pass over into new specific types. Viewed in this way, variability within the specific limits becomes in itself one of the strongest arguments against the doctrine of descent with modification as a mode of origination of new species.

Let us now add to all this the farther consideration, so well illustrated in the "Reliquiae Aquitanicae" of Christy and Lartet, that the oldest-known men of the caves and gravels may be placed in one of the varieties, and this the most widely distributed, of modern man, and we have a further argument which tells most strongly against the assumption either of the extreme antiquity or of the unlimited variability of the human species.

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 1: Argyll's "Primeval Man."]

[Footnote 2: Essays on Theism, 1875.]

[Footnote 3: John i., 9.]

[Footnote 4: Hebrews xi., 3.]

[Footnote 5: I avail myself of the condensed translation in Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii. The original French translation of Brasseur du Bourbourg is more full.]

[Footnote 6: The Feathered Serpent is perhaps the representative of the Dragon and Serpent in the Semitic version; but has not the same evil import, and his color gave sacredness to blue and green stones, as the turquois and emerald, both in North and South America, and perhaps also in Asia and Africa.]

[Footnote 7: I do not think it necessary to attach any value to the doubts of certain schools of criticism as to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Whatever quibbles may be raised on isolated texts, no rational student can doubt that we have in these books a collection of authentic documents of the Exodus. They are absolutely inexplicable on any other supposition.]

[Footnote 8: "Cosmos," Otte's translation.]

[Footnote 9: Hamilton, "Royal Preacher."]

[Footnote 10: Harvey, "Nereis Boreali Americana."]

[Footnote 11: Osburn, "Monumental History of Egypt."]

[Footnote 12: On this subject I may refer naturalists to the intimate acquaintance with animals and their habits, indicated by manner of their use as sacred emblems, and as symbols in hieroglyphic writing. Another illustration is afforded by the Mosaic narrative of the miracles and plagues connected with the exodus. The Egyptian king, on this occasion, consulted the _philosophers_ and _augurs_. These learned men evidently regarded the serpent-rod miracle as but a more skilful form of one of the tricks of serpent-charmers. They showed Pharaoh the possibility of reddening the Nile water by artificial means, or perhaps by the development of red algae in it. They explained the inroad of frogs on natural principles, probably referring to the immense abundance ordinarily of the ova and tadpoles of these creatures compared with that of the adults. But when the dust of the land became gnats ("lice" in our version), this was a phenomenon beyond their experience. Either the species was unknown to them, or its production out of the dry ground was an anomaly, or they knew that no larvae adequate to explain it had previously existed. In the case of this plague, therefore, comparatively insignificant and easily simulated, they honestly confessed--"This is the finger of God." No better evidence could be desired that the savans here opposed to Moses were men of high character and extensive observation. Many other facts of similar tendency might be cited both from Moses and the Egyptian monuments.]

[Footnote 13: That in Genesis, chap. ii.]

[Footnote 14: Kitto's Cyclopaedia, art. "Creation."]

[Footnote 15: Much that is very silly has been written as to the extent of the supposed "optical view" taken by the Hebrew writers; many worthy literary men appearing to suppose that _scientific_ views of nature must necessarily be different from those which we obtain by the evidence of our senses. The very contrary is the fact; and so long as any writers state correctly what they observe, without insisting on any fanciful hypotheses, science has no fault to find with them. What science most detests is the ignorant speculations of those who have not observed at all, or have observed imperfectly. It is a leading excellence of the Hebrew Scriptures that they state facts without giving any theories to account for them. It is, on the contrary, the circumstance that unscientific writers will not be content to be "optical," but must theorize, that spoils much of our modern literature, especially in its descriptions of nature.]

[Footnote 16: Prof. Hitchcock.]

[Footnote 17: McCosh, "Typical Forms and Special Ends."]

[Footnote 18: I adopt that view of the date of Job which makes it precede the Exodus, because the religious ideas of the book are patriarchal, and it contains no allusions to the Hebrew history or institutions. Were I to suggest an hypothesis as to its origin, it would be that it was written or found by Moses when in exile, and published among his countrymen in Egypt, to revive their monotheistic religion, and cheer them under the apparent desertion of their God and the evils of their bondage.]

[Footnote 19: Tyndall seems to hold this.]

[Footnote 20: Newton.]

[Footnote 21: John v., 17; Rom. viii., 22; Heb. i., 2; 2 Peter iii.]

[Footnote 22: Heb. i., 2.]

[Footnote 23: Eph. iii., 9.]

[Footnote 24: 1 Tim. i., 17.]

[Footnote 25: Eph. iv., 11.]

[Footnote 26: Job xxxviii. and xxxix.]

[Footnote 27: Romans i., 20.]

[Footnote 28: Essays on Theism.]

[Footnote 29: Herschel, Dissertation on the Study of Natural Philosophy; Maxwell, Lecture before the British Association.]

[Footnote 30: Carpenter, "Human Physiology."]

[Footnote 31: Asah.]

[Footnote 32: McDonald, "Creation and the Fall."]

[Footnote 33: Literally, "ages" or "time-worlds," as they have been called.]

[Footnote 34: Genesis i., 8, 26-28.]

[Footnote 35: Job xxxviii., 37.]

[Footnote 36: Gen. i., 14; Deut. xvii., 3.]

[Footnote 37: Gen. xxviii., 17; Job xv., 15; Psa. ii., 4.]

[Footnote 38: Not "created," as some read. The verb is _kana_, not _bara_.]

[Footnote 39: The usual Septuagint rendering is _Abyssus_.]

[Footnote 40: Smith, "Assyrian Genesis." Brasseur de Bourbourg's translation of the "Popol Vuh" of the ancient Central American Indians.]

[Footnote 41: It is impossible to avoid recognizing in the Greek Theogony, as it appears in Hesiod and the Orphic poems, an inextricable intermingling of a cosmogony akin to that of Moses with legendary stories of deceased ancestors; and this has, I must confess, always appeared to me to be a more rational way of accounting for it than its reference to mere nature-myths. Chaos, or space, for the chaos of Hesiod differs from that of Ovid, came first, then Gaea, the earth, and Tartarus, or the lower world. Chaos gave birth to Erebos (identical with the Hebrew Ereb or Erev, evening) and Nyx, or night. These again give birth to Aether, the equivalent of the Hebrew expanse or firmament, and to Hemera, the day, and then the heavenly bodies were perfected. So far the legend is apparently based on some primitive history of creation, not essentially different from that of the Bible. But the Greek Theogony here skips suddenly to the human period; and under the fables of the marriage of Gaea and Uranos, and the Titans, appears to present to us the antediluvian world, with its intermarriages of the sons of God and men, and its Nephelim or Giants, with their mechanic arts and their crimes. Beyond this, in Kronos and his three sons, and in the strange history of Zeus, the chief of these, we have a coarse and fanciful version of the story of the family of Noah, the insult offered by Ham to his father, and the subsequent quarrels and dispersion of mankind. The Zeus of Homer appears to be the elder of the three, or Japheth, the real father of the Greeks, according to the Bible; but in the time of Hesiod Zeus was the youngest, perhaps indicating that the worship of the Egyptian Zeus, Ammon or Ham, had already supplanted among the Greeks that of their own ancestor. But it is curious that even in the Bible, though Japhet is said to be the greater, he is placed last in the lists. After the introduction of Greek savans and literati to Egypt, about B.C. 660, they began to regard their own mythology from this point of view, though obliged to be reserved on the subject. The cosmology of Thales, the astronomy of Anaxagoras, and the history of Herodotus afford early evidence of this, and it abounds in later writers. I may refer the reader to Grote (History of Greece, vol. i.) for an able and agreeable summary of this subject; and may add that even the few coincidences above pointed out between Greek mythology and the Bible, independently of the multitudes of more doubtful character to be found in the older writers on this subject, appear very wonderful, when we consider that among the Greeks these vestiges of primitive religion, whether brought with them from the East or received from abroad, must have been handed down for a long time by oral tradition among the people; but obscure though they may be, the circumstance that some old writers have ridden the resemblances to death affords no excuse for the prevailing neglect of them in more modern times.]

[Footnote 42: Pages 21, 22, and 109, _supra_.]

[Footnote 43: The minor planets discovered in more recent times between Mars and Jupiter form an exception to this; but they are of little importance, and exceptional in other respects as well. To give their arrangement and the motions of the satellites of Uranus, would require the further assumption of some unknown disturbing cause.]

[Footnote 44: Nichol's "Planetary System."]

[Footnote 45: Proctor's Lectures, etc.]

[Footnote 46: This translation is as literal as is consistent with the bold abruptness of the original. The last idea is that of a cylindrical seal rolling over clay, and leaving behind a beautiful impression where all before was a blank.]

[Footnote 47: Professor Dana thus sums up the various meanings of the word _day_ in Genesis: "_First_, in verse 5, the _light_ in general is called day, the darkness night. _Second_, in the same verse, _evening and morning_ make the first day, before the sun appears. _Third_, in verse 14, day stands for _twelve hours_, or the period of daylight, as dependent on the sun. _Fourth_, same verse, in the phrase "days and seasons," day stands for a period of _twenty-four hours_. _Fifth_, at the close of the account, in verse 4 of the second chapter, day means the _whole period of creation_. These uses are the same that we have in our own language."

Warring, in his book "The Miracle of To-day," has suggested that the Mosaic days are _epochal_ days, each considered as the close and culmination of a period. This is an ingenious suggestion, and very well coincides with the day-period theory as defended in the text.]

[Footnote 48: Psalm xc.]

[Footnote 49: It may be desirable to give here, in a slightly paraphrased version, but strictly in accordance with the views of the best expositors, the essential part of the passage in Hebrews, chap. iv.:

"For God hath spoken in a certain place" (Gen. ii., 2) of the seventh day in this wise--'And God did rest on the seventh day from all his works;' and in this place again--'They shall not enter into my rest' (Psa. xcv., 11). Seeing, therefore, it still remaineth that some enter therein, and they to whom it (God's Sabbatism) was first proclaimed entered not in, because of disobedience (in the fall, and afterward in the sin of the Israelites in the desert), again he fixes a certain day, saying in David's writings, long after the time of Joshua--'To-day, if ye hear his voice, harden not your hearts.' For if Joshua had given them rest in Canaan, he would not afterward have spoken of another day. There is therefore yet reserved a keeping of a Sabbath for the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest (that is, Jesus Christ, who has finished his work and entered into his rest in heaven), he himself also rested from his own works, as God did from his own. Let us therefore earnestly strive to enter into that rest."

It is evident that in this passage God's Sabbatism, the rest intended for man in Eden and for Israel in Canaan, Christ's rest in heaven after finishing his work, and the final heavenly rest of Christ's people, are all indefinite periods mutually related, and can not possibly be natural days.]

[Footnote 50: For the benefit of those who may value ancient authorities in such matters, and to show that such views may rationally be entertained independently of geology, I quote the following passage from Origen: "Cuinam quaeso sensum habenti convenienter videbitur dictum, quod dies prima et secunda et tertia, in quibus et vespera nominatur, et mane, fuerint sine sole, et sine luna et sine stellis: prima autern dies sine coelo." So St. Augustine expressly states his belief that the creative days could not be of the ordinary kind: "Qui dies, cujusmodi sint, aut perdifficile nobis, aut etiam impossibile est cogitare, quanto magis discere." Bede also remarks, "Fortassis hic diei nomen, totius temporis nomen est, et omnia volumina seculorum hoc vocabulo includit." Many similar opinions of old commentators might be quoted. It is also not unworthy of note that the cardinal number is used here, "one day" for first day; and though the Hebrew grammarians have sought to found on this, and a few similar passages, a rule that the cardinal may be substituted for the ordinal, many learned Hebraists insist that this use of the cardinal number implies singularity and peculiarity as well as mere priority.]

[Footnote 51: It is to be observed, however, that on the so-called literal day hypothesis the first Sabbath was not man's seventh day, but rather his first, since he must have been created toward the close of the sixth day.]

[Footnote 52: "Footprints of the Creator."]

[Footnote 53: This idea occurs in Lord Bacon's "Confession of Faith," and De Luc also maintains that the Creator's Sabbath must have been of long continuance.]

[Footnote 54: See the quotation from Job, _supra_.]

[Footnote 55: This is not strictly correct, as many animals, especially of the lower tribes, extend back to the early tertiary periods, long before the creation of man; a fact which of itself is irreconcilable with the Mosaic narrative on the theory of literal or ordinary days.]

[Footnote 56: Since this was written, the bones of many Batrachian reptiles have been found in the Carboniferous, both in Europe and America. No reptilian remains have yet been found in the Devonian rocks.]

[Footnote 57: _Biblical Repository_, 1856. See also an excellent paper by Prof. C. H. Hitchcock, _Bibliotheca Sacra_, 1867.]

[Footnote 58: Rhode, quoted by McDonald, "Creation and the Fall," p. 62; Eusebius, Chron. Arm.]

[Footnote 59: Suidas, Lexicon--"Tyrrenia."]

[Footnote 60: Diodorus Siculus, bk. i. Prichard, Egyptian Mythology.]

[Footnote 61: "Asiatic Researches."]

[Footnote 62: This name is exactly identical in meaning with the Hebrew Jehovah Elohim.]

[Footnote 63: Mueller, Sanscrit Literature.]

[Footnote 64: The theology of the Institutes is clearly primitive Semitic in its character; and therefore, if the Bible is true, must be older than the Aryan theogony of the Rig-Veda, as expounded by Mueller, whatever the relative age of the documents.]

[Footnote 65: "Recent Advances in Physical Science."]

[Footnote 66: Croll's "Climate and Time" contains some interesting facts as to this.]

[Footnote 67: See the discussion of this in the author's "Story of the Earth," and in Sir William Thomson's British Association Address, 1876.]

[Footnote 68: Daniell's Meteorological Essays; Prout's Bridgewater Treatise; art. "Meteorology," Encyc. Brit.; "Maury's Physical Geography of the Sea."]

[Footnote 69: Kaemtz, "Course of Meteorology."]

[Footnote 70: Encyc. Brit., art. "Meteorology."]

[Footnote 71: It is not meant that the word _rakiah_ occurs in these passages, but to show how by other words the idea of stretching out or extension rather than solidity is implied. The verb in the first two passages is _nata_, to spread out.]

[Footnote 72: See also Humboldt, "Cosmos," vol. ii., pt. 1.]

[Footnote 73: Heb., "they refine."]

[Footnote 74: "His pavilion round about him was dark waters and thick clouds of the skies," Psa. xviii. This expression explains that in the text.]

[Footnote 75: Or "He darkens the depths of the sea."]

[Footnote 76: Translation of these lines much disputed and very difficult. Gesenius and Conant render it, "His thunder tells of him; to the herds even of him who is on high."]

[Footnote 77: I take advantage of this long quotation to state that in the case of this and other passages quoted from the Old Testament I have carefully consulted the original; but have availed myself freely of the renderings of such of the numerous versions and commentaries as I have been able to obtain, whenever they appeared accurate and expressive, and have not scrupled occasionally to give a free translation where this seemed necessary to perspicuity. In the book of Job, I have consulted principally the translation appended to Barnes's Commentary, Conant's translation, 1857, and those of Tayler Lewis and Evans in Schaff's edition of Lange, 1874.]

[Footnote 78: The word is one of those that pervade both Semitic and Indo-European tongues: Sanscrit, _ahara_; Pehlevi, _arta_; Latin, _terra_; German, _Erde_; Gothic, _airtha_; Scottish, _yird_; English, _earth_.--Gesenius.]

[Footnote 79: Psalm xcv.]

[Footnote 80: Gesenius.]

[Footnote 81: Perhaps "changed," metamorphosed, as by fire. Conant has "destroyed."]

[Footnote 82: "Dust" in our version, literally lumps or "nuggets."]

[Footnote 83: The vulgar and incorrect idea that the vulture "scents the carrion from afar," so often reproduced by later poets, has no place in the Bible poetry. It is the bird's keen eye that enables him to find his prey.]

[Footnote 84: Lyell's "Principles of Geology."]

[Footnote 85: Stanford, London, 1875.]

[Footnote 86: In further explanation of these general geological changes, see "The Story of the Earth and Man," by the author.]

[Footnote 87: "Tenera herba, sine semine saltem conspicuo."--Rosenmueller, "Scholia."]

[Footnote 88: Haughton, Address to the Geological Society, Dublin.]

[Footnote 89: See McDonald, "Creation and the Fall." Professor Guyot, I believe, deserves the credit of having first mentioned, on the American side of the Atlantic, the doctrine respecting the introduction of plants advocated in this chapter.]

[Footnote 90: "Eozoic" of this work. Professor Dana in the latest edition of his Manual uses the name "Archaean."]

[Footnote 91: This may refer to an eclipse, but from the character of the preceding verses more probably to the obscurity of a tempest. It is remarkable that eclipses, which so much strike the minds of men and affect them with superstitious awe, are not distinctly mentioned in the Old Testament, though referred to in the prophetical parts of the New Testament.]

[Footnote 92: Perhaps rather the high places of the waters, referring to the atmospheric waters.]

[Footnote 93: The rendering "sweet influences" in our version may be correct, but the weight of argument appears to favor the view of Gesenius that the close bond of union between the stars of this group is referred to. I think it is Herder who well unites both views, the Pleiades being bound together in a sisterly union, and also ushering in the spring by their appearance above the horizon. Conant applies the whole to the seasons, the bands of Orion being in this view those of winter.]

[Footnote 94: It would be unfair to suppress the farther probability that the writer intends specially to indicate that the sacred crocodile of the Nile was itself a creature of Jehovah, and among the humbler of those creatures.]

[Footnote 95: The interesting discovery, by Mr. Beale and others, of several species of mammalia in the Purbeck, and that of Professor Emmons of a mammal in rocks of similar age in the Southern States of America, do not invalidate this statement; for all these, like the _Microlestes_ of the German trias and the _Amphitherium_ of the Stonesfeld slate, are small marsupials belonging to the least perfect type of mammals. The discovery of so many species of these humbler creatures, goes far to increase the improbability of the existence of the higher mammals.]

[Footnote 96: It is very interesting, in connection with this, to note that nearly all the earliest and greatest seats of population and civilization have been placed on the more modern geological deposits, or on those in which stores of fuel have been accumulated by the growth of extinct plants.]

[Footnote 97: See Appendix.]

[Footnote 98: See Appendix for farther discussion of this subject.]

[Footnote 99: See Lyell, Principles of Geology, "Introduction of Species."]

[Footnote 100: For the exposition of the details of the fall, I beg to refer the reader to McDonald's "Creation and the Fall," to Kitto's "Antediluvians and Patriarchs," and to Kurtz's "History of the Old Covenant."]

[Footnote 101: The Bible specifies, perhaps only as the principal of these arts, music and musical instruments by Jubal, metallurgy by Tubalcain, the domestication of cattle and the nomade life by Jabal. It is highly probable that these inventors are introduced into the Mosaic record for a theological reason, to point out the folly of the worship rendered to Phtha, Hephaestos, Vulcan, Horus, Phoebus, and other inventors, either traditionary representatives of the family of Lamech, or other heroes wrongly identified with them. Very possibly their sister Naamah, "the beautiful," is introduced for the same reason, as the true original of some of the female deities of the heathen.]

[Footnote 102: I can not for a moment entertain the monstrous supposition of many expositors that the "sons of God" of these passages are angels, and the "Nephelim" hybrids between angels and men.]

[Footnote 103: See Lange's "Commentary on Genesis."]

[Footnote 104: The Russian surveys of 1836 made it one hundred and eight English feet; but later authorities reduce it to eighty-three feet six inches below the Black Sea.]

[Footnote 105: Kitto's "Bible Illustrations"--Book of Job.]

[Footnote 106: See article "Rephaim" in Kitto's "Journal of Sacred Literature." But Gesenius and others regard it, not as an ethnic name, but as a term for the "shades" or spirits of the dead. See Conant on Job.]

[Footnote 107: On the Biblical view of this subject, the so-called Aryan mythology, common to India and Greece, is either a derivative from the Cushite civilization, or a spontaneous growth of the Japetic stock scattered by the Cushite empire. The Semitic and Hamitic mythologies are derived from the primeval cherubic worship of Eden, corrupted and mixed with deification of natural objects and stages of the creative work, and with adoration of deified ancestors and heroes.]

[Footnote 108: Genesis 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters. See also our previous remarks on the deluge.]

[Footnote 109: Genesis iv.]

[Footnote 110: Japheth is "enlargement," his sons are Scythians and inhabitants of the isles, varying in language and nationality; and Noah predicts, "God shall enlarge Japheth, he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, Ham shall be his servant." These are surely characteristic ethnological traits for a period so early. On the rationalist view, it may be supposed that this prediction was not written until the characters in question had developed themselves; but since the greatest enlargement of Japheth has occurred since the discovery of America, there would be quite as good ground for maintaining that Noah's prophecy was interpolated after the time of Columbus.]

[Footnote 111: The language of this people, the stem of the Indo-European languages, is, though in a later form, probably that of the Aryan or Persepolitan part of the trilingual inscriptions at Behistun and elsewhere in Persia.]

[Footnote 112: Edkins, "China's Place in Philology."]

[Footnote 113: Reginald S. Poole has adduced very ingenious arguments, monumental, astronomical, and mythological, for the date B.C. 2717.]

[Footnote 114: It is curious that almost simultaneously with the appearance of Bunsen's scheme a similiar view was attempted to be maintained on geological grounds. In a series of borings in the delta of the Nile, undertaken by Mr. Horner, there was found a piece of pottery at a depth which appeared to indicate an antiquity of 13,371 years. But the basis of the calculation is the rate of deposit (3-1/2 inches per century) calculated for the ground around the statue of Rameses II. at Memphis, dated at 1361 B.C.; and Mr. Sharpe has objected that no mud could have been deposited around that statue from its erection until the destruction of Memphis, perhaps 800 years B.C. Farther, we have to take into account the natural or artificial changes of the river's bed, which in this very place is said to have been diverted from its course by Menes, and which near Cairo is now nearly a mile from its former site. The liability to error and fraud in boring operations is also very well known. It has farther been suggested that the deep cracks which form in the soil of Egypt, and the sinking of wells in ancient times, are other probable causes of error; and it is stated that pieces of burnt brick, which was not in use in Egypt until the Roman times, have been found at even greater depths than the pottery referred to by Mr. Horner. This discovery, at first sight so startling, and vouched for by a geologist of unquestioned honor and ability, is thus open to the same doubts with the Guadaloupe skeletons, the human bones in ossiferous caverns, and that found in the mud of the Mississippi; all of which have, on examination, proved of no value as proofs of the geological antiquity of man.]

[Footnote 115: 5004 B.C.]

[Footnote 116: Perhaps the earliest certain date in Egyptian history is that of Thothmes III. of the eighteenth dynasty, ascertained by Birch on astronomical evidence as about 1445 B.C. (about 1600, Manetho); and it seems nearly certain that before the eighteenth dynasty, of which this king was the fifth sovereign, there was no settled general government over all Egypt.]

[Footnote 117: The Egyptians seem, like our modern cattle-breeders, to have taken pride in the initiation and preservation of varieties. Their sacred bull, Apis, was required to represent one of the varieties of the ox; and one can scarcely avoid believing that some of their deified ancestors must have earned their celebrity as tamers or breeders of animals. At a later period, the experiments of Jacob with Laban's flock furnish a curious instance of attempts to induce variation.]

[Footnote 118: See for evidence of these views early notices in Genesis, and Lenormant and Osburne on Egyptian Monuments and History.]

[Footnote 119: There is no good reason to believe the flint implements mentioned by Delanouee and others, as found on the banks of the Nile, to be older than the historic period.]

[Footnote 120: Wilson, "Prehistoric Man," 2d edition, p. 68.]

[Footnote 121: Southall has accumulated a great number of these facts in his book on the antiquity of man.]

[Footnote 122: Professor Issel, quoted in _Popular Science Monthly_.]

[Footnote 123: Wilson has remarked the striking similarity of the pottery of these people to American fictile wares. This similarity applies also to the early Cyprian art.]

[Footnote 124: I agree with Gladstone's conclusions as to the date and country of Homer.]

[Footnote 125: I suggested these terms in my lectures published under the title "Nature and the Bible," 1875.]

[Footnote 126: Since these words were written I have read the remarkable book of Edkins on the Chinese language, which supplies much additional information.]

[Footnote 127: Donaldson has pointed out (British Association Proceedings, 1851) links of connection between the Slavonian or Sarmatian tongues and the Semitic languages, which in like manner indicate the primitive union of the two great branches of languages.]

[Footnote 128: "Man and his Migrations." See also "Descriptive Ethnology," where the Semitic affinities are very strongly brought out.]

[Footnote 129: I can scarcely except such terms as "Japetic" and "Japetidae," for Iapetus can hardly be any thing else than a traditional name borrowed from Semitic ethnology, or handed down from the Japhetic progenitors of the Greeks.]

[Footnote 130: See art. "Philology," Encyc. Brit.]