[1] It is an interesting fact that the pecuniary means, the skill and labour expended in research in the more ancient historic regions, have to so large an extent been those of Christians interested in the Bible history. Yet some littérateurs, who have contributed nothing to these results, attempt to distort and falsify them in the interest of an unhistorical and unscientific criticism, and even to taunt the Bible as adverse to archæological inquiry.
The earth has indeed, especially in our own time, and under the impulse of Christian civilisation, made wonderful revelations as to its early history, to which we do well to take heed, as antidotes to some of the speculations which are palmed upon a credulous world as established truths. We have now very complete data for tracing the earth from its original formless or chaotic state through a number of formative and preparatory stages up to its modern condition; but perhaps the parts of its history least clearly known, especially to general readers, are those that relate to the beginning and the end of the creative work. The earlier stages are those most different from our experience and whose monuments are most obscure. The later stages on the other hand have left fewer monuments, and these have been complicated with modern changes under human influence. Besides this, it is always difficult to piece together the deductions from merely monumental evidence and the statements of written or traditional history. There would seem, however, to be now in our possession sufficient facts to link the human period to those which preceded it, and thereby to sweep away a large amount of misconception and misrepresentation in one department at least of the relations of natural science with history.
I have called the subject with which we are to deal the meeting-place of two sciences. In reality, however, it might be embraced under the name anthropology, the science of man, which covers both his old prehistoric ages as revealed by geology and archæology, and the more modern world which is still present, or of which we have written records. The main point to be observed is that it is necessary to place distinctly before our minds the fact that we are studying a period in which, on the one hand, we have to observe the precautions necessary in geological investigation, and on the other to examine the evidence of history and tradition. A failure either on the one side or the other may lead to the gravest errors.
In studying the subjects thus indicated it will be necessary first to notice shortly the history of the earth before the human period, and its condition at the time of man's introduction. We may then inquire as to the earliest known remains of man preserved in the crust of the earth, and trace his progress through the earlier part of the anthropic or human period, in so far as it is revealed to us by the relics of man and his works preserved in the earth. We shall then be in a position to inquire as to the form in which the same chain of events is presented to us by history and tradition, and to discover the leading points in which the two records agree or appear to differ.
It may be necessary here to define a few terms. The two latest of the great geological periods may be termed respectively the pleistocene and the modern, or anthropic, the latter being the human period or age of man. The pleistocene includes what has been called the glacial age, a period of exceptional cold and of much subsidence and elevation of the land, in the northern hemisphere at least. The modern, or anthropic, is for our present purpose divisible into two sections—the early modern, or palanthropic, sometimes called quaternary, or post-glacial, and which may coincide with the antediluvian period of human history; and the neanthropic, extending onward to the present time. [2]
[2] The terms 'Palæolithic' and 'Neolithic' have been used for the men of the Palanthropic and Neanthropic ages; but these are objectionable, as implying that these ages can be best distinguished by the use of certain stone implements, which is not the fact. I have preferred, therefore, to call the earlier races of men palæocosmic, and the later neocosmic, where it may be necessary to refer to them as races; while the periods to which they belong are respectively the Palanthropic and Neanthropic. By the use of these terms all ambiguity will be avoided.
THE WORLD BEFORE MAN
Man is of recent introduction on the earth. For millions of years the slow process of world-making had been going on, with reference to physical structure and to the lower grades of living creatures. Only within a few thousand years does our globe seem to have been fitted for its highest tenant. The evidence of this is to be found in any text-book of geology. I propose here merely to present the history of the earth in a series of word-pictures, introductory to our special subject.