“The primeval savage” is a familiar term in modern literature, but there is no evidence that the primeval savage ever existed. Rather all the evidence looks the other way.[1700]
In his Origin of Nations, he rightly adds:
The mythical traditions of almost all nations place at the beginning of human history a time of happiness and perfection, a “golden age” which has no features of savagery or barbarism, but many of civilization and refinement.[1701]
How is the modern Evolutionist to meet this consensus of evidence?
We repeat the question asked in Isis Unveiled:
Does the finding of the remains in the cave of Devon prove that there were no contemporary races then who were highly civilized? When the present population of the Earth has disappeared, and some Archæologist belonging to the “coming race” of the distant future shall excavate the domestic implements of one of our Indian or Andaman Island tribes, will he be justified in concluding that mankind in the nineteenth century was “just emerging from the Stone age”?[1702]
Another strange inconsistency in scientific theories is that Neolithic man is shown as being far more of a primitive savage than Palæolithic. Either Lubbock's Pre-historic Man, or Evans' Ancient Stone Implements must be at fault, or—both. For this is what we learn from these works and others:
(1) As we pass from Neolithic to Palæolithic man, the stone implements become rude lumbering makeshifts, instead of gracefully shaped and polished instruments. Pottery, and other useful arts disappear as we descend the scale. And yet the latter could engrave such a reindeer!
(2) Palæolithic man lived in caves which he shared with hyænas and lions,[1703] whereas Neolithic man dwelt in lake-villages and buildings.
Every one who has followed even superficially the geological discoveries of our day, knows that a gradual improvement in workmanship is found, from the clumsy chipping and rude chopping of the early Palæolithic hatchets, to the relatively graceful stone celts of that part of the Neolithic period immediately preceding the use of metals. But this is in Europe, only a few portions of which were barely rising from the waters in the days of the highest Atlantean civilization. There were rude savages and highly civilized people then, as there are now. If 50,000 years hence, pigmy Bushmen are exhumed from some African cavern together with far earlier pigmy elephants, such as were found in the cave deposits of Malta by Milne Edwards, will that be a reason for maintaining that in our age all men and all elephants were pigmies? Or if the weapons of the Veddhas of Ceylon are found, will our descendants be justified in setting us all down as Palæolithic savages? All the articles which Geologists now excavate in Europe can certainly never date earlier than the close of the Eocene age, since the lands of Europe were not even above water before that period. Nor can what we have said be in the least invalidated by theorists telling us that these quaint sketches of animals and men by Palæolithic man, were executed only toward the close of the Reindeer period—for this explanation would be a very lame one indeed, in view of the Geologists' ignorance of even the approximate duration of periods.