CHAPTER VI.

PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS.

Short Duration of Tradition--No Recollection of Stone Age--Celts taken for Thunderbolts--Stone Age in Egypt--Palæolithic Implements--Earliest Egyptian Traditions--Extinct Animals forgotten--Their Bones attributed to Giants--Chinese and American Traditions--Traditions of Origin of Man--Philosophical Myths--Cruder Myths from Stones, Trees, and Animals--Totems--Recent Events soon forgotten--Autochthonous Nations--Wide Diffusion of Prehistoric Myths--The Deluge--Importance of, as Test of Inspiration--More Definite than Legend of Creation--What the Account of the Deluge in Genesis really says--Date--Extent--Duration--All Life destroyed except Pairs preserved in the Ark--Such a Deluge impossible--Contradicted by Physical Science--By Geology--By Zoology--By Ethnology--By History--How Deluge Myths arise--Local Floods--Sea Shells on Mountains--Solar Myths--Deluge of Hasisadra--Noah's Deluge copied from it--Revised in a Monotheistic Sense at a comparatively Late Period--Conclusion--Rational View of Inspiration 178