Chapter V: Chronology From the Point of View of Science

Although the testimony of history is definite and decisive as to the chronology of the world, within the limits of a few hundred years, there is a general assumption, in all branches of scientific inquiry, that man must have existed many thousand years beyond the period thus assigned to him. Lyell speaks of "the vastness of time"[59] required for his development, and Bunsen, as we have seen, requires twenty thousand years, at least, between the Deluge and the nativity of our Lord: and wherefore this discrepancy? Because of a fundamental assumption--not merely hypothetical for the convenience of inquiry--but confident and absolute; an assumption which, so far as the argument is concerned, is the very matter in dispute--that man must have progressed and developed to the point at which we see him.

[59] "Principles of Geology," tenth edition, 1868, ii. p. 471.

At the same time, the actual chronology cannot be altogether ignored, and some cognisance must be taken of the facts which history presents to us; and it is this unfortunate exigency, interrupting the placid course of development, which not unfrequently lands scientific inquirers of the first eminence in difficulties from which it will take an indefinite lapse of time to extricate them; _ex. gra._, Bunsen, in his "Egypt," iii. 379, says--

"It has been more than once remarked, in the course of this work,
that the _connection between the Chinese and the Egyptians_
belongs, in several of its phases, to the _general history_ of
the world. The Chinese language is the furthest point beyond that
of the formation of the Egyptian language, which represents, as
compared with it, the middle ages of mankind,--viz., the Turanian
and Chamitic stages of development."

The conclusion of philology (_vide_ also Brace's "Ethnology," p. 114) is, therefore, that the Turanian or Chamitic grew out of the more inorganic and elementary Chinese.

Now, let us compare Lyell's conclusions with Bunsen's. Lyell equally believes ("Principles of Geology," ii. 471) "that three or four thousand years is but a _minute fraction_ of the time required to bring about such wide divergence from a common parent stock, 'as between' the Negroes and Greeks and Jews, Mongols and Hindoos, represented on the Egyptian monuments."

At the same time, he endorses Sir John Lubbock's view, and pronounces, upon what appears to me very light and insufficient grounds (ii. 479), that "the theory, therefore, that the savage races have been degraded from a previous state of civilisation _may be rejected_:" and by implication that the civilised races have progressed from the savage state may be affirmed.[60]

[60] The ground upon which Lyell pronounces this judgment is
(ii. 479) "that no fragment of pottery has been found among
the nations of Australia, New Zealand, and the Polynesian
islands any more than ancient architectural remains, in all
which respects, these rude men now living, resemble the men
of the Palæolithic age; when pottery is known to all, it is
always abundant, and, though easy to break, is difficult to
destroy. It is improbable that so useful an art should ever
have been lost by any race of man." The argument is strongly
put, but many things are left out of consideration. Supposing
the primitive knowledge, is not pottery one of the arts
which would be most likely to be lost in a migration across
the seas? Again, that they had no pottery, and that the
Palæolithic age had no pottery, shows that in the interval
there had been no progress. When will there be? As to the
circumstance that it is the same among the Australians and
Polynesians, the fact cuts both ways. You assume that there
is a uniformity in progress, but may not there be the same
uniformity in the processes of degradation? and, assuming the
fact, may it not simply prove that these savages have reached
the same depth as the other savages?--_Vide_ appendix to ch.
xii.

I have, then, only to assume one point that Sir C. Lyell will concede, the order of progress or development to have been from black to white, and that he will pay us the compliment of being the more favoured race.

But of all the races that are akin to the Mongol or Turanian, the Chinese are the whitest, and most nearly approach the European in colour.

How many years, then, may we suppose that it took the Chinese to progress from the black state of the Egyptian? as many, let us conjecture, as it took the Egyptian to progress linguistically from the state of the Chinese or Mongol!

This is one instance of the entanglement in which the theory of progress, pure and simple, from a parent stock will involve us. The obvious mode of escape would be to deny the unity of the human race, a conclusion which would at once land us in the darkness of a still lower abyss, and convert our processes from being scientific in form and hopeful of result, into empirical and aimless conjectures. For either the theory is started that the various races of mankind were created separately, in which case we fly into the face of the only account we have of creation, and also of the multiform testimonies which history and science bring to attest this truth, and we, moreover, debar ourselves from falling back upon any uniform theory applicable to the whole human race; or if, without advertence to creation, we suppose mankind to have been variously developed, here again we shall equally find ourselves cut off from the application of any uniform historical theory, equally unable to account for or to exclude the testimony of history, and in the end reduced to the evidences, whatever they may be worth, of certain real or fancied analogies.[61] At this point, the historical inquiry will be virtually abandoned, and the records of the past merged in the phenomena of life, will be considered only in the light of some pantheistic or materialistic theory, or, so far as it is distinguishable, of some theory of evolution.

[61] The following passage from M. A. Bastian's article in _The
Academy_, June 15, 1871, "On the People of India," seems
to me to afford an illustration in point--"The natural
system becomes an indispensable necessity in every science,
so soon as it is clearly seen that the question is not of
classification, but of observation of, and insight into,
law. Classification was long held to be the sole end,
instead of being merely or mainly the means of study. As,
in this respect, systematic botany gave place to vegetable
physiology, so, in like manner, ethnology will have to look
upon its classification of race--with which the school books
hitherto have been almost exclusively occupied--as merely a
preliminary step towards a physiology of mankind, and to _a
science of the laws_ which _govern its spiritual growth_."
Now, if no physiology of mankind, in the sense here intended,
can be traced, and if "the science of the laws which govern
its spiritual growth" (_vide infra_, an exposition of Mr
Baring Gould's theory) has come to no definite conclusion,
then the only result, as far as science is concerned, will
have been the revolutionising of its classifications, and the
classifications of the different races of men (and, in so far
as they have been accurately ascertained, their confusion will
be matter of regret) is the legitimate and ultimate end of
ethnology under normal conditions.

I am no longer concerned with any of these theories the moment they discard the historical element; and I shall, accordingly, return to the theory of Sir John Lubbock, which is honestly based upon it.

When all is said, I cannot make out that Sir John adduces any argument in favour of the antiquity of the human race which does not resolve itself into the contrast between our civilisation and the degradation of savages; and that the time which must have elapsed to bring about this transformation is measured by the fact that the negro, of the "true Nigritian stamp," appears upon the Egyptian monuments, at least as far back as B.C. 2400. "Historians, philologists, and physiologists have alike admitted that the short period allowed in Archbishop Usher's chronology could hardly be reconciled with the history of some Eastern nations, and that it did not leave room _for the development either of_ the different languages or of the numerous physical peculiarities by which various races of men are distinguished."[62] As no facts in the history of Eastern nations are adduced, I shall consider that this part of the argument has been sufficiently disposed of in the preceding chapters, and if they had been adduced, I venture to think that they would have been interpreted by the latter part of the sentence, and would have been incompatible with the chronology, only because they did not allow sufficient time "for the development," &c. Of this sort of fact, I admit, nothing stronger can be adduced than the case of the negro on the Egyptian monuments, only I wish to direct attention to the different aspect these facts will bear when the theory of progress is not assumed as an infallible proposition. Moreover, as Mr Poole, whom Sir J. Lubbock very candidly quotes, points out, in the interval between this and 2400 B.C. we do not find "the least change in the negro or the Arab; and even the type which seems to be intermediate between them, is virtually as unaltered. Those who consider that length of time can change a type of man, will do well to consider the fact that three thousand years give no ratio on which a calculation could be founded." So that if Arch. Usher had expanded his chronology so as to take in the twenty thousand years Bunsen requires, it really would not appreciably have affected the argument. Sir J. Lubbock, indeed, says (p. 477)--"I am, however, not aware that it is supposed by any school of ethnologists that 'time' alone, without a change of external conditions, will produce an alteration of type." "Let us," he continues, "turn now to the instances relied on by Mr Crawford. The millions, he says, of African negroes that have, during three centuries, been transported to the New World and its islands, are the same in colour as the present inhabitants of the parent country of their forefathers. The Creole Spaniards ... are as fair as the people of Arragon and Andalusia. The pure Dutch Creole colonists of the Cape of Good Hope, after dwelling two centuries among black Caffres and yellow Hottentots, do not differ in colour from the people of Holland." [The strongest case is, perhaps, that of the American Indians, who do not vary from a uniform copper colour in north or south--in Canada or on the line.][63] In these instances, Sir J. Lubbock says:--"We have great change of circumstances, but a very insufficient lapse of time, and, in fact, there is no well authenticated case [he does not, however, advert to the case of the Indians, which seems to satisfy both conditions] in which these two requisites are united," ... and adds, "there is already a marked difference between the English of Europe and the English of America;" but is full allowance made here for admixture of race? and, also, is his instance to the point? Is not the difficulty rather that, whereas climate, food, change of circumstances have (for, I think, the balance of the argument is on that side), in many ways, modified other races (though whether to the extent of destroying the characteristic type, may be open to question), the negro has resisted these influences, and has remained the same negro that we find him 2400 B.C.? Consider that it is only a question of degree, and that it is merely true that the negro has resisted these influences more persistently than other races.[64] Still the contrast is not the less startling when we find the negro in the same relative position, and with the same stamp of inferiority, that we find indelibly impressed upon him four thousand years ago? It is a case which neither the theory of progress, nor the theory of degeneracy, seems to touch.

[62] Sir J. Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," p. 313.

[63] It has almost passed into a proverb, says Morton--who is among
those who know the Americans best--that he who has seen one
Indian tribe has seen them all, so closely do the individuals
of this race resemble each other, whatever may be the variety
or the extent of the countries they inhabit." Reusch's "La
Bible et la Nature," _vide_ also Card. Wiseman's "Lect. on
Science and Rev. Rel." lect. iv., _vide_, however, Reusch,
p. 498, where "a remarkable difference in the cranium" is
noticed, "sometimes approaching the Malay, sometimes the
Mongol shape."

[64] That the negro has undergone modifications, seems established
by the fact that we nowhere find all the characteristics of
the negro united in any one case--unless, perhaps, in the case
of the negroes of Guinea, to which I have alluded. Yet, in
the people who border them, there has been noticed "un retour
vers des formes superieures." The Yoloss, "out le front élevé,
des machoires peu saillantes, leurs dents sont droites, et
ils sont en général bein constitués, _mais ils sont tout à
fait noirs_. Leurs voisins, les Mandingues, tiennent beaucoup
plus du type négre ... mais leur teint est beaucoup moins
noir."--De Bur. ap. Reusch, p. 505. But under no influences
of climate has the negro ever become white like the European,
or the European black like the inhabitant of Guinea; if they
become darker, "c'est simplement la teint particulier à leur
race qui gagne en intensité."--Burminster, ap. Reusch, p. 509.

But it is a case which De Maistre's view exactly solves. Now, however much we may rebel against De Maistre's theory, that the early races of mankind were endowed with higher and more intuitive moral faculties than ours, and, whether or not, we accept his _dictum_ that great punishments pre-suppose great knowledge, and reversely, that higher knowledge implies the liability to great punishments, I do not see how we can refuse to consider the matter, so far as to see whether the view solves all the difficulties of the question. It is not the first time that the blackness of the African race has been connected in theory with a curse; but De Maistre's theory throws a new light on the malediction--whether it be the curse of Cham or of Chanaan, or whether both were smitten, according to different degrees of culpability: and I maintain, further, that it is adequate to the explanation of the phenomena, that it does not clash with history, and that it is sustained by tradition.

Nevertheless, I apprehend that this view will be as much combated from the point of view of scriptural exegesis, as of scientific speculation.

Yet the curse of Cham, or of Chanaan, affecting all their posterity, ought not in reason to be more revolting even to those who have never realised what sin is, than the narrative of the fall of Adam and Eve with its direful consequences. The theory seems perfectly conformable to Scripture, and to what we know of the secrets of the Divine judgments. The picture of Cham, or Chanaan, stricken with blackness, does not present a more sudden or more terrible retribution to the mind than the Fall of the Angels. How many thousand years did it take to transform Lucifer into Satan? or the primitive Adam into the Adam feeling shame, and conscious of decay, want, and the doom of death?

On the other hand, blackness, from the commencement, has been associated with evil. To this it may be replied that this is the sentiment merely of the white races--a natural prejudice of colour, an _ex parte_ deduction; and to this argument, if such is the view really taken by the black races, and if no consciousness can be detected of their degradation amongst themselves, I see no other reply than this, That since, _ex hypothesi_, they are black because they are cursed, the tradition of this curse would be more naturally preserved by the white races than by the black. But is there no consciousness of this inferiority in the true negro? Without looking at the matter from the same point of view, I may appeal to Captain Burton's statements on this point as to a fully competent, if not the highest, authority that can be quoted on points of African travel. In the first place, he notices "the confusion of the mixed and the mulatto with the full-blooded negro. By the latter word I understand the various tribes of intertropical Africa, unmixed with European or Asiatic blood" ("Dahome," ii. 187); and p. 193, "I have elsewhere given reasons for suspecting, in the great Kafir family, a considerable mixture of Arab, Persian, and other Asiatic blood:" and as to the particular point in question, he says (p. 200), "The negro will obey a white man more readily than a mulatto, and a mulatto rather than one of his own colour. He never thinks of claiming equality with the Aryan race except when taught. At Whydat, the French missionaries remark that their scholars always translate 'white and black by master and slave.'" P. 189, "One of Mr Prichard's few good generalisations is, that as a rule the darker and dingier the African tribe, the more degraded is its organisation."[65] I find a very similar testimony in Crawford's "Hist. of the Indian Archipelago," i. 18. He says, "The brown and negro races of the Archipelago may be considered to present, in their physical and moral characters, a complete parallel with the white and negro races in the western world. The first has always displayed as great a relative superiority over the second, as the race of white men have done over the negroes of the west." Yet at p. 20 he says, "The Javanese, who live most comfortably, are among the darkest people in the Archipelago, the wretched Dyaks, or cannibals of Borneo, among the fairest." It must be noted, however, that the Javanese have also preserved something of primitive tradition--_e.g._ their marriage ceremony. And, moreover, it is not at all essential to the argument to prove that the negroes are the _most degraded_ race. Let it be said that they have had their curse, and that the sign of the curse is in their blackness--this is merely equivalent to saying that they are cursed _pro tanto_; but it by no means follows that other races have not fallen to lower depths, and incurred a deeper reprobation.[66]

[65] Captain Burton (ii. 165) also quotes a Catholic and a
Protestant missionary as to this point. M. Wallon says, "Avec
leur tendance à nous considérer comme réellement supérieurs à
eux, et leur croyance que cette supériorité nous est acquise
par celle de notre Dieu, ils renonceraient bientôt aux leurs
idoles pour adorer celui qui nous leur prions de connaître."
Mr Dawson says, "Fetish has been strengthened by the white
man, whom the ignorant blacks would not scruple to call a god
if he could avoid death."

Assuming the identity of Bacchus and Noah, it is a striking
circumstance, from this point of view, that the name of
_Bacchus_, among the Phoenicians, was a synonymous term for
mourning.--_Vide Hesychius in Bryant's "Mythology,"_ ii. 335;
_vide also the verses of Theocritus_. Comp. p. 247, _note_
(Boulanger).

[66] Perhaps Captain Burton's phrase (ii. 178), "the _arrested_
physical development of the negro," may, if extended to his
mental development, exactly hit the truth, the standard being
fixed by the age at which we conceive the boy Chanaan's
development to have been _arrested_.--Comp. _Wallace, infra_,
p. 91; comp. 217.

Among the Sioux Indians, and in the isle of Tonga (Oceanica), I find trace of the tradition of blackness as a curse, and I should think it likely that other instances might be discovered. The former (the Sioux), in their reminiscences of the Deluge, relate, "The water remained on the earth only two days (for the two months during which the Scripture says it was at its height), at the expiration of which the Master of Life, seeing that they had need of fire, sent it them by a white crow, which, stopping to devour carrion, allowed the fire to be extinguished. He returned to heaven to seek it. The Great Spirit drove it away, and punished it by _striking it black_."--"_Annales de la Prop. de la Foi_," l. iv. 537; Gainet, i. 211.

In Tonga, the tradition is connected with this history of Cain:--

"The god Tangaloa,[67] who first inhabited this earth, is this
Adam. He had two sons, who went to live at Boloton.... The younger
was very clever. Tonbo (the eldest) was very different; he did
nothing but walk about, sleep, and covet the works of his brother.
One day he met his brother out walking, and knocked him down. Then
their father arrived at Boloton, and in great anger said, 'Why
has thou killed thy brother. Fly, wretched man; fly. _Your race
shall be black_, and your soul depraved; you shall labour without
success. Begone; you shall not go to the land of your brother, but
your brother shall come sometimes to trade with you.' And he said
to the family of the victim, 'Go towards the great land; your skin
shall be white; you shall excel in all good things.'"--_Gainet_, i.
93.[68]

[67] "Annales de Philos. Chret.," t. xiii. p. 235.

[68] The expressions in the latter part of this narration recall
the blessing of Jacob, and suggests the possibility of the
tradition having come through descendants of Esau.

Cardinal Wiseman (in his "Science and Revealed Religion," lect. iii.), says, with reference to Aristotle's distribution of mankind into races by colour:--

"There is a passage in Julius Firmicus, overlooked by the
commentators of Aristotle, which gives us the same ternary
division, with the colours of each race. 'In the first place,' he
writes, 'speaking of the characters and colours of men, they agree
in saying,--if by the mixed influence of the stars, the characters
and complexions of men are distributed; and if the course of the
heavenly bodies, by a certain kind of artful painting, form the
lineaments of mortal bodies; that is, if the moon makes men white,
Mars red, _and Saturn black_, how comes it that in Ethiopia all are
born black, in Germany white, and in Thrace red?'"--_Astronomicon_,
lib. i., c. i., ed. Basil. 1551, p. 3.

Now this passage seems to me to have a still further significance in the words I have italicised, with reference to the argument I have in hand. It transpires, therefore, that the ancients had the notion that Saturn made men black, which provoked the natural query, why then are only the Ethiopians black? That it should ever have been supposed that the distant Saturn, astronomically regarded, should have had such an influence is preposterous, but if the mythological personage, Saturn, ch. x., has been sufficiently identified with Noah, and the deification of the hero in the planet (comp. pp. 159, 161) probable, the notion that _he made men black_, must be the tradition of the event we are considering.

I have elsewhere traced the fulfilment of the text which says that Canaan shall be the "servant of servants to his brethren;" but as the following extract from Klaproth, in evidence of the same, has also its significance with reference to the point I am now considering--viz. the curse of blackness--I prefer to give it a place here:--"Sakhalian oudehounga est expliqué en Chinois par 'Khian chéon,' et par 'li chu,' ce qui signifie les '_têtes noires_' et le '_peuple noir_,' expression par laquelle on designe la 'bas peuple' ou les 'paysans.' Cette une expression _usitée dans plusieures pays Asiatiques ainsi qu'en Russie."--Klaproth, "Mem. Relatif a l'Asie;" vide strictures on Pere Amyot's "Mandchou Dict_."

In the oldest books of the Zendavasta, virtue and vice are personified as white and black. "The contrast between good and evil is strongly and sharply marked in the Gâthâs.... They go a step further and personify the two parties to the struggle. One is a 'white,' or holy spirit (_spentô mainyus_), and the other, a 'dark' spirit (_angrô mainyus_). But this personification is merely poetical or metaphysical, not real."--_Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies_," iii. p. 106. The contrast, however, between good and evil, as white and black was the genuine expression of their idea or tradition. (Hung. ap. Bunsen, iii. p. 476, admits, at least in one instance in the Gâthâs, "an angra ('black') is put in opposition to the white, or more holy spirit.")

Mr Hunter ("Rural Bengal," p. 114) says of the primitive Aryans in India--"The ancient singer praises the _god_ who 'destroyed the Dasyans and protected the _Aryan colour_" (Rig. Veda., iii. pp. 34-39), and "the thunderer, who bestowed on his white friends the fields," &c. Whatever obscurity may attach to the latter passage, there can be no doubt of the abhorrence with which the singers speak, _again_ and _again_, of "_the black skin_," ... _e.g._ "the sacrificer poured out thanks to his god for 'scattering the _slave_ bands of _black descent_.'"

Although I believe the idea was traditional and had reference to the curse, I will concede that it might have arisen primarily in the contrast of night and day, light and darkness. But does this settle the question? On the contrary, fortified with this explanation, I return to my argument with those, who say that blackness is a mere prejudice of race, and that it is not demonstrable that it is the sign of a curse, or the mark of inferiority. Does not Nature herself proclaim it, in her contrast of light and darkness? Day and night, I imagine, would be recognised as apt symbols of error and evil as opposed to truth and goodness, even among the black races, irrespective of any consciousness or reminiscence of their degradation. Accordingly, the deeds of evil in Scripture are spoken of as the "works of darkness." It may be, therefore, that the idea of blackness as a curse is derived primitively from its association with the darkness of night; but the fact remains that blackness is connected in our minds with a curse,[69] and there is the further fact that a black race exists, and has existed during four thousand years, with this mark of inferiority upon it (compare _sup._ ch. iii. ix.)

[69] This is so much in tradition as to be a matter of common
parlance--for instance, when the late Emperor of the French
is depicted, this is the language which, upon a certain
construction, appears most natural--"On the other side stands
a phalanx of satirists, represented by Victor Hugo. The only
colour on the palette of those artists is _lamp black_.
Morally they paint the ex-Emperor as _dark as a negro_, array
him _in the livery of the devil_, and _then_ invoke the
_execration_ of history."--_Spectator_, Sept. 17th, 1870.

But a point of some difficulty remains to be determined--viz. what precisely was the race which came under this ban. Was it the whole descent of Ham, or only the posterity of Chanaan ?

Hales, in his learned work on chronology (i. p. 344), discusses this question. He says that, whereas--

"Even the most learned expositors (Bochart and Mede) have
implicitly adopted the appropriation of the curse of servitude to
Ham and his posterity." Yet "the integrity of the received text of
prophecy, limiting the curse to 'Canaan' singly, is fully supported
by the concurrence of the Massorite and Samaritan Hebrew texts,
with _all the other_ ancient versions except the Arabian; and is
acknowledged, we see, by Josephus and Abulfaragi (_sup._), who
evidently confine the curse to Canaan--though they inconsistently
consider Ham as the offender, and are not a little embarrassed to
exempt him and _the rest of his children_[70] from the operation
of the curse--an exemption, indeed, attested by sacred and profane
history; for Ham himself had his full share of earthly blessings,
his son Misr colonised Egypt, thence styled the land of Ham (Ps.
cv. 23), which soon became one of the earliest, most civilised,
and flourishing kingdoms of antiquity, and was established before
Abraham's days (Gen. xii. 14-20), and in the glorious reign of
Sesostris ... while Ham's posterity, in the line of Cush, not only
founded the first Assyrian empire, under Nimrod, but also the
Persian (?), the Grecian (?), and the Roman (?) empires, in direct
contradiction to the unguarded assertion of Mede [that 'there
hath never yet been a son of Ham that hath shaken a sceptre over
the head of Japheth.'] How, then, is the propriety of the curse
exclusively to Canaan to be vindicated?--evidently by considering
him as the only guilty person ... upon the very ingenious
conjecture of Faber, that the 'youngest son' who offended was not
Ham, but Canaan--not the son, but the grandson of Noah. For the
original, 'his little son,' according to the latitude of the Hebrew
idiom, may denote a grandson, by the same analogy that Nimrod....
this (the former) interpretation is supported by ancient Jewish
tradition, 'Boresith Rabba,' sec. 37, recorded also by Theodoret
... the tradition, indeed, also adds that Ham joined in the
mockery, but for this addition there seems no sufficient grounds."

[70] The italics are mine.

There is, however, the tradition, and, moreover, a distinct tradition that Ham was black. Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, in his "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," i., says--

"The Hebrew word Ham is identical with the Egyptian Khem, being
properly written Khm, Kham, or Khem, and is the same which the
Egyptians themselves gave to their country in the sculptures of
the earliest and latest periods" (261). Egypt was denominated
Chemi (Khemi), or the land of Ham, "as we find in the hieroglyphic
legends; and the city of Khem, or Panopolis, was called in
Egyptian Chemmo, of which evident traces are preserved in that of
the modern town E'Khmim" (260). "Besides the hieroglyphic group,
composed of the two above alluded to (260), indicating Egypt, was
one consisting of _an eye_, and the sign land, _which bore the
same_ signification; and since _the pupil_, or _black_ of the eye,
was called _Chemi_, we may conclude this to be a phonetic mode
of writing the name of Egypt, which Plutarch pretends was called
Chemmia, from the _blackness_ of its soil" (263). "_Chame_ is
_black_ in _Coptic_, Egypt is _Chemi_, and it is remarkable that
_khom_ or _chom_ is used in Hebrew for black or brown, as in Gen.
xxx. 32-40."--_Id._

Here then, at any rate, the name of Ham or Cham is curiously associated with blackness, and must have been so associated from the commencement of Egyptian history. I leave it to the Egyptologist to decide whether the presumption is stronger that the name of Egypt, identical with that of Ham, was originally derived from the blackness of its soil, or from the blackness of him whose name was identical with it ("the land of Ham" being both the scriptural and Egyptian appellation), more especially when "the eye" (apparently a personal or historical, not certainly a geographical allusion) was used as an equivalent hieroglyphic symbol for land.[71]

[71] The eye would be the very most apposite symbol for blackness,
if we consider that blackness lingers there after the skin has
become white, and, in the case of half-breeds, is the test of
descent in gradations even beyond, I believe, the octoroon.

Captain King ("Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical
and Western Coasts of Australia," ii. Append.) says, "That
although there is the greatest diversity of words among the
Australian tribes, the equivalent for 'eye' is common to them
all."

Here, as in other instances, if we follow the strict lines of tradition, it seems to me that we shall escape all the difficulties which are usually alleged against it. It will result then that, although according to the text of Scripture, the curse of servitude was limited to the posterity of Chanaan; yet, seeing that the criminality was common to Ham and Chanaan, according to the tradition referred to, and as is, moreover, implied in the marked manner in which Scripture (Gen. xviii. 22) indicates Cham as "the father of Chanaan," it is presumable that, if blackness was the concomitant of the curse, it extended to both Ham and Chanaan, and, by implication, to their posterity, but then _after the curse_. As Chanaan, according to the tradition, was then a boy, all his children would have been affected by the curse; but does it follow that all Ham's descent was involved in the malediction? This would be to suppose a retrospective curse, for which the only analogy would be the hypothesis that if Adam had sinned after the birth of Cain and Abel, they and their posterity would also have incurred the guilt of original sin. Now the sons of Ham were (Gen. x. 6) "Chus and Mesram and Phuth and Chanaan," _i.e._, Chus and Mesram and Phuth were the elder brothers of Chanaan, and therefore not the children of Ham after the pronouncement of the curse. If, then, we find the children of Mesram dark, but without the negro features or the blackness of Canaan; if "Sesostris, his descendant, was a great conqueror;" if Nimrod, the son of Chus, was a powerful chieftain, and the founder of the Assyrian empire; if nothing is known of the posterity of Phuth beyond the conjecture that they were the Lybians--in a word, if the descent from these three sons does not bear out the evidence of the curse, can it be said to militate at all against the hypothesis of the curse of Ham as well as of Canaan?

Moreover, if there are differences among the black races which may present difficulties, would not the knowledge that there may have been a posterity of Ham, born after the curse,[72] go far to remove them? Hales, indeed, assumes that "Ham himself had his full share of earthly blessings; his son Misr colonised Egypt," &c. (as _sup._); but this prosperity, as he indicates it, is only seen in the prosperity of his three sons, whom I assume to have been exempt from the curse. It must be remembered, however, that the occult science of the Cainites was said to have been preserved by the family of Ham, and, as we have seen, the taint was in the race.[73]

[72] Lenormant, "Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne," i. 23, makes a
similar suggestion as to this point--"La texte de la Bible
n'a rien qui s'oppose formellement à l'hypothèse que Noè
aurait eu, postérieurement au deluge, d'autres enfants que
Sem, Cham, et Japhet, d'où seraient sorties les races qui ne
figurent pas dans la généalogie de ces trois personnages." But
two objections seem to me to be fatal to this view. The races
about whom this difficulty would be raised would be the red
and black races: why should it be surmised that the supposed
posterity of Noah, after the Deluge, _should_ have this mark
of inferiority? In the second place, it does seem to be
formally opposed to Gen. x. 32--"These are the _families_ of
_Noe_, according to their peoples and nations. _By these_ were
the nations divided on the earth after the flood."

The red races might perhaps be accounted for by Gen. xxv.
23-25.

[73] There appears to me, however, a text to which attention
might be directed. We know that the Ethiopians were black,
but in Amos ix. 7, where God is expressing His anger against
His people, He says, "Are you not as the children of the
Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel, saith the Lord."

I am very far from claiming for these theories any special ecclesiastical countenance and authority. I have already intimated my opinion that, on the whole, they would be as much opposed from the point of view of scriptural exegesis as from that of unbelief. It will be said, for instance, that there is evidence in Scripture of the curse of Canaan, but no proof that blackness was the concomitant effect of the curse; and certainly it is not Scripture which affirms this, but only tradition.

To those who admit the curse, but deny the consequences which tradition attributes to it, I would oppose an almost identical argument with that which accounts for all differences in the human race by geographical location. I do not know where this argument is more forcibly put than in Latham's "Ethnology." There it is seemingly demonstrated that certain conditions, not merely of colour, but moral and intellectual, are the inseparable accompaniments of geographical location. Grant it, _pro argumento_, but I am arguing now upon the scriptural evidence, and with one with whom I assume I have a common belief in its inspiration.

It is true, then, that the curse of blackness is not recorded, but the distribution of the races is at least implied: Deut. xxxii. 8, "_When the Most High divided the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam_, he appointed the bounds of people according to the number of the children of Israel;" and Acts xvii. 26, "And hath made of one all mankind, to dwell upon the _whole face_ of the earth, _determining appointed times_, and _the limits_ of _their habitation_." (The Prot. version translates, "Having appointed the _predetermined seasons_ and _boundaries of_ their dwellings." _Vide_ Hales's Chron., i. 351, who adds that this was conformable to their own allegory "that Chronos, the god of time, or Saturn, divided the universe among his three sons.")[74]

[74] _Vide_ also ch. x., p. 239. The tradition that Phoroneus,
"the father of mankind," distributed the nations over the
earth, _idem nationes distribuit_.

If, then, the different races of mankind, according to their merits or demerits, were apportioned to, or miraculously directed or impelled to, respective portions of the earth, which necessarily superinduced certain effects, is not the curse as apparent in its indirect operation as it would have been in its suddenness and directness?

This consideration must, I think, bring those who raise scriptural difficulties against the theory to the admission that blackness was a sign of inferiority, and that certain races were either smitten with, or were predestined to, in consequence of culpability, this degradation.

This, I admit, is no reply to those who argue from the evidence of the Egyptian monuments. But the evidence from the monuments, so far from embarrassing my conclusion, seems absolutely to enforce it. If, indeed, the evidence from the monuments did not stare one in the face, we might fall back upon the line of argument which I have just indicated, and whilst recognising in their blackness the operation of a curse, trace it in the lapse of centuries and the influences of the torrid zone. But they are recorded as being black on the earliest monuments known to us, and within a few centuries of the Deluge. The conclusion, therefore, seems inevitable, that they were so from the commencement, which exactly hits in with the tradition of the curse of Canaan.

Such, from his own point of view, is the conclusion of Sir J. Lubbock ("Prehistoric Times," p. 478)--

"If there is any truth in this view of the subject (p. 478), it
will necessarily follow that the principal varieties of man are of
great antiquity, and, in fact, go back almost to the very origin
of the human race. We may then cease to wonder that the earliest
paintings on Egyptian tombs represent so accurately several various
varieties still existing in those regions, and that the Engis
skull, probably the most ancient yet found in Europe, so closely
resembles many that may be seen even at the present day."

The following conclusion of Mr Wallace also exactly coincides with De Maistre's view.

Lyell, in his "Principles of Geology" (ii. 471) says--

"Wallace suggests that at some former period man's corporeal frame
must have been _more pliant and variable_ than _it is now_; for,
according to the observed rate of fluctuation in modern times,
scarcely any conceivable lapse of ages would suffice to give rise
to such an amount of differentiation. He therefore concludes, that
when first the _mental_ and _moral_ qualities of man acquired
predominance, his bodily frame _ceased to vary_."

But, although science in its own way may arrive at approximations to the truth, yet, if the traditional solution be true, assuredly it is not a solution which will be reached by any merely scientific process; and therefore, if it should be the truth, the ethnological difficulty will remain an enigma and embarrassment to the learned in all time to come.