the eleventh chapter of Genesis are the only materials we have for the computation of the time between the Deluge and Abraham. If, therefore, on considering the extension of mankind and the formation of the different races,' and also the results of historical and geological inquiry, it appears that 300 years is too short a time, even a theologian with the strictest exegetical principles "need not," to use Delitzsch's words," with apologetic prejudice struggle against any disparagement of the chronological network of Genesis,"

a disparagement based on an assumed corruption of the text, which from a theological point of view is quite immaterial.

But if we may assume that the period between the Flood and Abraham was longer than the figures in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrew text seem to show, it will not be impossible to harmonize the chronology of theologians and historians. For it is admitted by all thoughtful men of science, that the accounts of long periods of time which occur in the histories of many ancient peoples, the Indians, Chinese, Babylonians, etc., rest on fantastic exaggerations, and at any rate cannot be compared to the Biblical record so far as trustworthiness is concerned. The only people of whom scholars acknowledge that its credibly recorded history reaches farther back than is consistent with the traditional Biblical chronology, is the Egyptian nation. But even here we have as yet no certain results, and if modern Egyptologists put the beginning of Egyptian

1 See above, p. 241.

2 Genesis, p. 184. Cf. p. 272.

3 Wiseman, On the Connection, etc. ii. 4. Meignan, Le monde, p.

history at about the year 3900 B.C.,1 this date, at any rate, is much more in harmony with the Biblical chronology than are the 100,000 years for which many assert that, according to geology, man must have existed on the earth.

Let us therefore put aside the question of how many thousands of years the human race has existed on the earth according to the statements in the Bible, or the calculations of Egyptologists, and let us state the question which will be discussed in the next lecture in this form: Has geology proved that the human race has existed for much more than 6000 years ?

1 Cf. W. Fell, “Die neuesten Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der altägyptischen Geschichte und Chronologie," in the Chilianeum N. F. i. 1869, P. 73.

XXXIV.

THE ANTIQUITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

GENERALLY speaking, geologists give us only relative and not absolute calculations of time, that is, they decide which is the oldest or most recent of several formations, but not exactly how old each is. For instance, they say that the Carboniferous system is older than the Triassic, and the latter older than the Oolite; but they do not know how many thousands of years each of these formations is older than the succeeding one, or by how many thousand years any of them has preceded the present day. Its chronology therefore is as if in a handbook of history we were only told that Julius Cæsar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon followed one another in the order in which they are named, without any mention of the intervals that occurred between these men, and between them and the present time.1 If, then, we ask what is the age of man in this relative sense, geologists unanimously answer, he is the most recent creature on the earth; he appeared later than the animals, in one of the latest of the geological periods. This agrees with the narrative in Genesis, according to which the creation of man concluded the work of the six days.2

1 B. Cotta, Geologische Fragen, p. 228. Geologie der Gegenwart, p. 232. 2 "Sacred history and geological truth both prove that man is a recent creature on the earth.”—Leonhard, Geologie, i. 282.

Now, geologists naturally wish to complete this apparently incomplete chronology. For this reason they have repeatedly attempted to express their chronology in figures; for instance, to calculate how many thousand years it must have taken to form the separate strata, and how many thousand years have elapsed since their formation. These calculations have as yet, however, produced no certain result; the time. is supposed to be some hundred thousands or millions years, and we are told that these figures are only approximate guesses, and that no one can vouch for their correctness.1

of

At first the attempt to give in figures the duration of the most recent periods, and with them the approximate age of the human race, seemed to promise some success, and geologists have limited themselves to these periods; that is, according to the description given above to the post-pliocene or quaternary, and the recent periods. Geology here comes into contact with history, for the latter in inquiring into the earliest periods of the existence of the human race, must consider not only written documents, but also the traces of man which are found in the strata or on the surface of the earth; such as graves, old monuments and erections, implements, and sometimes even the remains of men, and of the animals with whom they came in contact. That portion of the inquiry into the earliest history of mankind which does not rest on documentary evidence, but on such geological and archæological investigations as I have described, is becoming in these days more and more a special scientific study, and is called 1 See vol. i. p. 290. 2 Ibid. p. 284.

Primæval History, Historical Anthropology, Archæological Geology, Human Palæontology, or Prehistoric Archæology. These investigations have called forth an almost boundless literature, especially since Lyell's book on the Antiquity of Man appeared in the year 1863, and they form at the present time one of the favourite occupations of real and amateur men of science and antiquarians.

The fact that these investigations into primæval history have a theological or religious interest has on the one hand tended to promote them, but on the other has had an unfavourable effect, inasmuch as it has affected the prejudices of several investigators. As I have shown in my last lecture, the Bible, as generally understood, states that the age of the human race is only a few thousand years. Now, geologists must wish either to see the Biblical chronology confirmed or disproved by their science, according to their religious position; and although it has been, perhaps fairly, asserted that a few older geologists, such as Deluc and Cuvier, have allowed their geological calculations to be influenced by the Biblical statements, and that it is for this reason that they have calculated the antiquity of the human race at about 6000 years, there can be no doubt that some modern savants have taken pleasure in estimating the antiquity of the human race at many thousands of years, because they knew that they thus came into conflict with the Bible or the teaching of theologians, and with the belief of Christians.

I shall speak in the following lectures of Prehistoric Archæology. To-day I shall confine myself to geological investigations into the age of the human race.