CHAPTER XII.

RACES OF MANKIND.

Monogeny or Polygeny--Darwin--Existing Races--Colour--Hair--Skulls and Brains--Dolichocephali and Brachycephali--Jaws and Teeth--Stature--Other Tests--Isaac Taylor--Prehistoric Types in Europe--Huxley's Classification--Language no Test of Race--Egyptian Monuments--Human and Animal Races unchanged for 6000 years--Neolithic Races--Palæolithic--Different Races of Man as far back as we can trace--Types of Canstadt, Cro-Magnon, and Furfooz--Oldest Races Dolichocephalic--Skulls of Neanderthal and Spy--Simian Characters--Objections--Evidence confined to Europe--American Man--Calaveras Skull--Tertiary Man--Skull of Castelnedolo--Leaves Monogeny or Polygeny an open Question--Arguments on each side--Old Arguments from the Bible and Philology exploded--What Darwinian Theory requires--Animal Types traced up to the Eocene--Secondary Origins--Dog and Horse--Fertility of Races--Question of Hybridity--Application to Man--Difference of Constitutions--Negro and White--Bearing on Question of Migration--Apes and Monkeys--Question of Original Locality of Man--Asiatic Theory--Eur-African--American--Arctic--None based on sufficient Evidence--Mere Speculations--Conclusion--Summary of Evidence as to Human Origins 391

ILLUSTRATIONS

TABLET OF SNEFURA AT WADY MAGERAH 17

SPECIMEN OF HIEROGLYPHIC ALPHABET 19

PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH AND SPHYNX 24

FELLAH WOMAN AND HEAD OF SECOND HYKSOS STATUE 28

HYKSOS SPHYNX 28

STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP'S WIFE 38

KHUFU-ANKH AND HIS SERVANTS--EARLY EGYPTIANS 39

CUNEIFORM 46

SYMBOLS 48

CYLINDER SEAL OF SARGON I 56

HEAD OF ANCIENT CHALDÆAN 60

STATUE OF GUD-EA, WITH INSCRIPTION 61

SEA-FIGHT IN THE TIME OF RAMSES III 79

KING OF THE HITTITES 82

CHIEF OF PUNT AND TWO MEN 93

QUEEN SENDING WARRIOR TO BATTLE 102

ADAM, EVE, AND THE SERPENT 103

JUDGMENT OF THE SOUL BY OSIRIS 113

PYRAMID 141

ZIGGURAT RESTORED 151

THE VILLAGE SHEIK 164

PALÆOLITHIC CELT 319

PALÆOLITHIC CELT IN ARGILLITE 319

PALÆOLITHIC FLINT CELT 322

PALÆOLITHIC CELT OF QUARTZITE FROM NATAL 322

PORTRAIT OF MAMMOTH 328

EARLIEST PORTRAIT OF A MAN WITH SERPENTS AND HORSES' HEADS 328

REINDEER FEEDING 328

ARROW-HEADS 352

CUTS WITH FLINT KNIFE ON RIB OF BALÆONOTUS--PLIOCENE 354

CUT MAGNIFIED BY MICROSCOPE 354

FLINT SCRAPER FROM HIGH LEVEL DRIFT, KENT 358

UPPER MIOCENE IMPLEMENTS. PUY COURNY 359

COPARE QUATERNARY IMPLEMENTS 360

SECTION AT THENAY 362

MIDDLE MIOCENE IMPLEMENTS 364

MIDDLE MIOCENE IMPLEMENTS 365

COMPARE QUATERNARY IMPLEMENTS 367

SECTION OF GREAT CALIFORNIAN LAVA STREAM, CUT THROUGH BY RIVERS 377

SECTION ACROSS TABLE MOUNTAIN, TUOLUMNE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 381

THE NAMPA IMAGE 387

L'HOMME AVANT L'HISTOIRE 402

HUMAN ORIGINS.

INTRODUCTION.

The reception which has been given to my former works leads me to believe that they have had a certain educational value for those who, without being specialists, wish to keep themselves abreast of the culture of the day, and to understand the leading results and pending problems of Modern Science. Of these results the most interesting are those which bear upon the origin and evolution of the human race. In my former works I have treated of these mainly from the point of view of geology and palæontology, and have hardly touched on the province which lies nearest to us, that of history and of prehistoric traditions. In this province, however, a revolution has been effected by the discoveries of the present century, which is no less important than that made by geological research and by the doctrine of Evolution.

Down to the middle of the nineteenth century, and to a considerable extent down to the present day, the Hebrew Bible was held to be the sole and sufficient authority as to the early history of the human race. It was believed, with a certainty which made doubt impious, that the first man Adam was created in or about the year 4004 B.C., or not quite 6000 years ago; and that all human and other life was destroyed by a universal Deluge, 1656 years later, with the exception of Noah and his wife, their sons and their wives, and pairs of all living creatures, by whom the earth was repeopled from the mountain-peak of Ararat as a centre.

The latest conclusions of modern science show that uninterrupted historical records, confirmed by contemporary monuments, carry history back at least 1000 years before the supposed Creation of Man, and 2500 years before the date of the Deluge, and show then no trace of a commencement; but populous cities, celebrated temples, great engineering works, and a high state of the arts and of civilization, already existing. This is of the highest interest, both as bearing on the dogma of the Divine inspiration of the historical and scientific, as distinguished from the moral and religious, portions of the Bible, and on the still more important question of the true theory of Man's origin and relations to the Universe. The so-called conflict between Religion and Science is at bottom one between two conflicting theories of the Universe--the first that it is the creation of a personal God who constantly interferes by miracles to correct His original work; the second, that whether the First Cause be a personal God or something inscrutable to human faculties, the work was originally so perfect that the whole succession of subsequent events has followed by Evolution acting by invariable laws. The former is the theory of orthodox believers, the latter that of men of science, and of liberal theologians who, like Bishop Temple, find that the theory of "original impress" is more in accordance with the idea of an Omnipotent and Omniscient Creator, to whom "a thousand years are as a day," than the traditional theory of a Creator constantly interfering to supplement and amend His original Creation by supernatural interferences.

It is evidently important for all who desire to arrive at truth, and to keep abreast of the culture of the day, to have some clear conception of what historical and geological records really teach, and what sort of a standard or measuring-rod they supply in attempting to carry back our researches into the depths of prehistoric and of geological time.

I have therefore in this work begun with the historic period, as giving us a solid foundation and standard of time, by which to gauge the vastly longer periods which lie behind, and ascended from this by successive steps through the Neolithic and Palæolithic ages, and the Quaternary and Tertiary periods, so far as the most recent discoveries throw any light on the mysterious question of "Human Origins."

If I have succeeded in stimulating some minds, especially those of my younger readers, and of the working-classes who are striving after culture, to feel an interest in these subjects, and to pursue them further, my object will have been attained. They have been to me the solace of a long life, the delight of many quiet days, and the soother of many troubled ones, and I should be glad to think that I had been the means, however humble, of introducing to others what I have found such a source of enjoyment, and enlisting, if it were only a few, in the service of that "divine Philosophy," in which I have ever found, as Wordsworth did in Nature,

"The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being."