The Great Pyramid

There is one other striking example of a higher phase of development in science and the arts being succeeded by a lower phase, which is in danger of being forgotten because it has been made the foundation of theories which seem wild and fantastic, and are probably in great part erroneous. I allude to the Great Pyramid of Egypt, whose form, dimensions, structure, and uses have recently been the subject of elaborate works by Professor Piazzi Smyth. Now the admitted facts about the pyramid are so interesting and so apposite to the subject we are considering, that I beg to recall them to your attention. Most of you are aware that this pyramid has been carefully explored and measured by successive Egyptologists, and that the dimensions have lately become capable of more accurate determination owing to the discovery of some of the original casing-stones, and the clearing away of the earth from the corners of the foundation, showing the sockets in which the corner-stones fitted. Professor Smyth devoted many months of work with the best instruments in order to fix the dimensions and angles of all accessible parts of the structure: and he has carefully determined these by a comparison of his own and all previous measures, the best of which agree pretty closely with each other. The results arrived at are

1. That the pyramid is truly square, the sides being equal and the angles right angles.

2. That the four sockets on which the four first stones of the corners rested are truly on the same level.

3. That the directions of the sides are accurately to the four cardinal points.

4. That the vertical height of the pyramid bears the same proportion to its circumference at the base as the radius of a circle does to its circumference.

Now all these measures, angles, and levels are accurate, not as an ordinary surveyor or builder could make them, but to such a degree as requires the very best modern instruments and all the refinements of geodetical science to discover any error at all. In addition to this we have the wonderful perfection of the workmanship in the interior of the pyramid,

the passages and chambers being lined with huge blocks of stones fitted with the utmost accuracy, while every part of the building exhibits the highest structural science.

In all these respects this largest pyramid surpasses every other in Egypt. Yet it is universally admitted to be the oldest, and also the oldest historical building in the world.

Now these admitted facts about the Great Pyramid are surely remarkable and worthy of the deepest consideration. They are facts which, in the pregnant words of the late Sir John Herschel, "according to received theories ought not to happen," and which, he tells us, should therefore be kept ever present to our minds, since "they belong to the class of facts which serve as the clue to new discoveries." According to modern theories, the higher civilisation is ever a growth and an outcome from a preceding lower state; and it is inferred that this progress is visible to us throughout all history and in all material records of human intellect. But here we have a building which marks the very dawn of history, which is the oldest authentic monument of man's genius and skill, and which, instead of being far inferior, is very much superior to all which followed it. Great men are the products of their age and country, and the designer and constructors of this wonderful monument could never have arisen among an unintellectual and half-barbarous people. So perfect a work implies many preceding less perfect works which have disappeared. It marks the culminating point of an ancient civilisation, of the early stages of which we have no trace or record whatever.

Conclusion

The three cases to which I have now adverted (and there are many others) seem to require for their satisfactory interpretation a somewhat different view of human progress from that which is now generally accepted. Taken in connection with the great intellectual power of the ancient Greekswhich Mr. Galton believes to have been far above that of the average of any modern nation-and the elevation, at once intellectual and moral, displayed in the writings of Confucius, Zoroaster, and the Vedas, they point to the conclusion that, while in material progress there has been a tolerably steady

advance, man's intellectual and moral development reached almost its highest level in a very remote past. The lower, the more animal, but often the more energetic types have, however, always been far the more numerous; hence such established societies as have here and there arisen under the guidance of higher minds have always been liable to be swept away by the incursions of barbarians. Thus in almost every part of the globe there may have been a long succession of partial civilisations, each in turn succeeded by a period of barbarism; and this view seems supported by the occurrence of degraded types of skull along with such "as might have belonged to a philosopher," at a time when the mammoth and the reindeer inhabited southern France.

Nor need we fear that there is not time enough for the rise and decay of so many successive civilisations as this view would imply, for the opinion is now gaining ground among geologists that paleolithic man was really preglacial, and that the great gap (marked alike by a change of physical conditions and of animal life) which in Europe always separates him from his neolithic successor, was caused by the coming on and passing away of the great ice age.

If the views now advanced are correct, many, perhaps most, of our existing savages are the successors of higher races; and their arts, often showing a wonderful similarity in distant continents, may have been derived from a common source among more civilised peoples.

VIII

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN NORTH AMERICA'

Ancient Shell Mounds-Man Coeval with Extinct Mammalia-Man in the Glacial Period-Paleolithic Implements in North America-The Auriferous Gravels of California-Fossil Remains under the Ancient Lava Beds Works of Art in the Auriferous Gravels-Human Remains in the Auriferous Gravels - Concluding Remarks on the Antiquity of Man.

OVER a considerable portion of the northern hemisphere the remains of man, or his works, have been found in association with bones of the extinct mammalia which characterised the Glacial epoch, and no evidence has been obtained that man at that time differed more from modern savages than they do among themselves. The facts which prove this antiquity were, when first put forth, doubted, neglected, or violently opposed, and it is now admitted that such opposition was due to prejudice alone, and in every case led to the rejection. of important scientific truths. Yet after nearly thirty years' experience we find that an exactly similar prejudice prevails, even among geologists, against all evidence which carries man one little step farther back into pre-Glacial or Pliocene times, although if there is any truth whatever in the doctrine of evolution as applied to man, and if we are not to adopt the exploded idea that the Paleolithic men were specially created just when the flood of ice was passing away, they must have had ancestors who must have existed in the Pliocene period, if not earlier. Is it then so improbable that some trace of man should be discovered at this period, that each particle of evidence as it arises must be attacked with all the weapons of

1 This article appeared in the Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1887.

doubt, accusation, and ridicule, which for so many years crushed down the truth with regard to Palæolithic man? One would think, as Jeremy Bentham said of another matter, that it was "wicked or else unwise" to accept any evidence for facts which are yet so inherently probable that the entire absence of evidence for their existence ought to be felt to be the greatest stumbling-block.

No better illustration of this curious prejudice can be given than the way in which some recent discoveries of stone implements in deposits of considerable antiquity in India are dealt with. These implements are of quartzite, and are of undoubtedly human workmanship. They were found in the Lower Laterite formation, which is said to have undergone great denudation and to be undoubtedly very ancient. Old stone circles of a great but unknown antiquity are formed of it. It is also stated that the distinction between the Tertiary and post-Tertiary is very difficult in India, and the age of these Laterite beds cannot be determined either by fossils, which are absent, or by superposition. Yet we are informed, "The presence of Paleolithic implements proves that the rock is of post-Tertiary origin."1 Here we have the origin of man taken as fixed and certain, so certain that his remains may be used to prove the age of a doubtful deposit! Nor do these indications of great antiquity stand alone, for in the Nerbudda fluviatile deposits Mr. Hackel has found stone weapons in situ along with eleven species of extinct fossil mammalia.

Believing myself that the existence of man in the Tertiary epoch is a certainty, and the discovery of his remains or works in deposits of that age to be decidedly probable, I hold it to be both wise and scientific to accept all evidence of his existence before the Glacial epoch which would be held satisfactory for a later period, and when there is any little doubt, to give the benefit of the doubt in favour of the find rather than against it. I hold further that it is equally sound doctrine to give some weight to cumulative evidence; since, when a thing is not improbable in itself, it surely adds much to the argument in its favour that facts which tend to prove it come from many different and independent sources-from those who are quite ignorant of the interest that attaches to their discovery, 1 Manual of the Geology of India, p. 370.