Millions of years have sunk into Lethe, leaving no more recollection in the memory of the profane than the few millenniums of the orthodox Western chronology as to the Origin of Man and the history of the primeval races.
All depends on the proofs found for the antiquity of the Human Race. If the still-debated man of the Pliocene or even the Miocene period was the Homo primigenius, then Science may be right (argumenti causâ) in basing its present Anthropology—as to the date and mode of origin of Homo sapiens—on the Darwinian theory.[1631] But if the skeletons of man should at any time be discovered in the Eocene strata, while no fossil ape is found there, and the existence of man is thus proved to be prior to that of the anthropoid—then Darwinians will have to exercise their ingenuity in another direction. Moreover, it is said in well-informed quarters that the twentieth century will be still in its earliest teens when such undeniable proof of man's priority will be forthcoming.
Even now much evidence is being brought forward to prove that the dates hitherto assigned for the foundations of cities, civilizations and various other historical events have been absurdly curtailed. This was done as a peace-offering to biblical chronology. The well-known Palæontologist Ed. Lartet writes:
No date is to be found in Genesis, which assigns a time for the birth of primitive humanity.
But Chronologists have for fifteen centuries endeavoured to force the Bible facts into agreement with their systems. Thus, no less than one hundred and forty different opinions have been formed about the single date of “Creation.”
And between the extreme variations there is a discrepancy of 3,194 years, in the reckoning of the period between the beginning of the world and the birth of Christ. Within the last few years, archæologists have had also to throw back by nearly 3,000 years the beginnings of Babylonian civilization. On the foundation cylinder deposited by Nabonidus, the Babylonian king, conquered by Cyrus—are found the records of the former, in which he speaks of his discovery of the foundation stone that belonged to the original temple built by Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, of Accadia, the conqueror of Babylonia, who, says Nabonidus, lived 3,200 years before his own time.[1632]
We have shown in Isis Unveiled that those who based history on the chronology of the Jews—a race which had none of its own and rejected the Western till the twelfth century—would lose their way, for the Jewish account could only be followed through kabalistic computation, and only then with key in hand. We characterized the late George Smith's chronology of the Chaldæans and Assyrians, which he had made to fit in with that of Moses, as quite fantastic. And now, in this respect at least, later Assyriologists have corroborated our denial. For, whereas George Smith makes Sargon I (the prototype of Moses) reign in the city of Akkad about 1600 b.c.—probably out of a latent respect for Moses, whom the Bible makes to flourish 1571 b.c.—we now learn from the first of the six Hibbert Lectures delivered by Professor A. H. Sayce, of Oxford, in 1887, that:
Old views of the early annals of Babylonia and its religions have been much modified by recent discovery. The first Semitic Empire, it is now agreed, was that of Sargon of Accad, who established a great library, patronized literature, and extended his conquests across the sea into Cyprus. It is now known that he reigned as early as b.c. 3,750.... The Accadian monuments found by the French at Tel-loh must be even older, reaching back to about b.c. 4,000.
In other words, to the fourth year of the World's creation agreeably with Bible chronology, and when Adam was in his swaddling clothes. Perchance, in a few years more, the 4,000 years may be further extended. The well-known Oxford lecturer remarked in his disquisitions upon “The Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians,” that:
The difficulties of systematically tracing the origin and history of the Babylonian Religion were considerable. The sources of our knowledge of the subject were almost wholly monumental, very little help being obtainable from classical or Oriental writers. Indeed, it was an undeniable fact that the Babylonian priesthood intentionally swaddled up the study of the religious texts in coils of almost insuperable difficulty.