There is, in the usual manner of speaking of these subjects, a source of misapprehension, which deserves special mention in this place. The Hebrew Scriptures derive all the nations of the ancient world from three patriarchs, and the names of these have often been attached to particular races of men and their languages; but it should never be supposed that these classifications are likely to agree with the Bible affiliation. They may to a certain extent do so, but not necessarily or even probably. In the nature of the case, those portions of these families which remained near the original centre, and in a civilized state, would retain the original language and features comparatively unchanged. Those which wandered far, fell into barbarism, or became subjected to extreme climatic influences, would vary more in all respects. Hence any general classification, whether on physical or philological characters, will be likely to unite, as in the Caucasian group of Cuvier, men of all the three primitive families, while it will separate the outlying and aberrant portions from their main stems of affiliation. Want of attention to this point has led to much misconception; and perhaps it would be well to abandon altogether terms founded on the names of the sons of Noah, except where historical affiliation is the point in question. It would be well if it were understood that when the terms Semitic, Japhetic, [129] and Hametic are used, direct reference is made to the Hebrew ethnology; and that, where other arrangements are adopted, other terms should be used. It is obviously unfair to apply the terms of Moses in a different way from that in which he uses them. A very prevalent error of this kind has been to apply the term Japhetic to a number of nations not of such origin according to the Bible; and another of more modern date is to extend the term Semitic to all the races descended from Ham, because of resemblance of language. It should be borne in mind that, assuming the truth of the Scriptural affiliation, there should be a "central" group of races and languages where the whole of the three families meet, and "sporadic" [130] groups representing the changes of the outlying and barbarous tribes.

While, however, all the more eminent philologists adhere to the original unity of language, they are by no means agreed as to the antiquity of man; and some, as for instance Latham and Dr. Max Müller, are disposed to claim an antiquity for our species far beyond that usually admitted. In so far as this affects the Bible history, it is important, inasmuch as this would appear to limit the possible antiquity of all languages to the time of the deluge. The date of this event has been variously estimated, on Biblical grounds, at from 1650 B.C. (Usher) to 3155 B.C. (Josephus and Hales); but the longest of these dates does not appear to satisfy the demands of philology. The reason of this demand is the supposed length of time required to effect the necessary changes. The subject is one on which definite data can scarcely be obtained. Languages change now, even when reduced to a comparatively stable form by writing. They change more rapidly when men migrate into new climates, and are placed in contact with new objects. The English, the Dutch, and the German were perhaps all at the dawn of the mediæval era Mæso-Gothic. At the same rate of change, allowing for greater barbarism and greater migrations, they may very well have been something not far from Egyptian or Sanscrit 2000 years before Christ. The truth is that present rates of variation afford no criterion for the changes that must occur in the languages of small and isolated tribes lapsing into or rising from barbarism, possessing few words, and constantly requiring to name new objects and until some ratio shall have been established between these conditions and those of modern languages, fixed by literature and by a comparatively stationary state of society, it is useless to make any demands for longer time on this ground. [131]

Even in the present day, Moffat informs us that in South Africa the separation of parts of a tribe, for even a few months, may produce a notable difference of dialect. If we take the existing languages of civilized men whose history is known, we shall find that it is impossible to trace many of them back as far as the Christian era, and when we have passed over even half that interval, they become so different as to be unintelligible to those who now speak them. Where there are exceptions to this, they arise entirely from the effects of literature and artificial culture. While, therefore, there is good ground in philology for the belief in one primitive language, there seems no absolute necessity to have recourse even to the confusion of tongues at Babel to explain the diversities of language. [132] Farther, the Bible carries back the Semitic group of languages at least to the time of the Deluge, but it does not seem necessary on the mere ground of antediluvian names, to carry it any farther back, and the Assyrian inscriptions show the coexistence of Turanian and Semitic tongues at the dawn of history in the region of the Euphrates and Tigris. One or other of these—or a monosyllabic language underlying it—was probably an antediluvian tongue, and the other a very early derivative; and both history and philology would assign the precedence to the Turanian language, which was probably most akin to that which had descended from antediluvian times, and which at that early period of dispersion indicated in the Bible story of Babel, had begun to throw off its two great branches of the Aryan and Semitic languages. These, proceeding in two dissimilar lines of development, continue to exist to this day along with the surviving portions of the uncultivated Turanian speech. To this point, however, we may return under another head.

CHAPTER XIV.
UNITY AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN—(Continued.)

"By the word of God the heavens were from of old, and the earth, formed out of water, and by means of water, by which waters the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished."—2 Peter iii., 5, 6.

3. Geological Evidence as to the Antiquity of Man.—No geological fact can now be more firmly established than the ascending progression of animal life, whereby from the early invertebrates of the Eozoic and Primordial series we pass upward through the dynasties of fishes and reptiles and brute mammals to the reign of man. In this great series man is obviously the last term; and when we inquire at what point he was introduced, the answer must be in the later part of the great Cainozoic or Tertiary period, which is the latest of the whole. Not only have we the negative fact of the absence of his remains from all the earlier Tertiary formations, but the positive fact that all the mammalia of these earlier ages are now extinct, and that man could not have survived the changes of condition which destroyed them and introduced the species now our contemporaries. This fact is altogether independent of any question as to the introduction of species by derivation or by creation. The oldest geological period in which any animals nearly related in structure to man occur is that named the Miocene, and no traces of man have as yet been found in any deposits of this age. All human remains known belong either to the Pleistocene or Modern. Now the Pleistocene was characterized by one of those periods of glacial cold which have swept over the earth—by one of those great winters which have so chilled the continents that few forms of life could survive them—and man comes in at the close of this cold period, in what is called the Post-glacial age. Some geologists, it is true, hold to an interglacial warm period, in which man is supposed to have existed, but the evidence of this is extremely slender and doubtful, and it carries back in any case human antiquity but a very little way. I have, in my "Story of the Earth and Man," shown reason for the belief, in which I find Professor Hughes, of Cambridge, coincides with me, [133] that the interglacial periods are merely an ingenious expedient to get rid of the difficulties attending the hypothesis of the universal glaciation of the northern hemisphere.

But, though man is thus geologically modern, it is held that historically his existence on earth may have been very ancient, extending perhaps ten or twenty, or even a hundred times longer than the period of six or seven thousand years supposed to be proved by sacred history. Let us first, as plainly and simply as possible, present the facts supposed thus to extend the antiquity of man, and then inquire as to their validity and force as arguments in this direction.

The arguments from geology in favor of a great antiquity for man may be summarized thus: (1) Human remains are found in caverns under very thick stalagmitic crusts, and in deposits of earth which must have accumulated before these stalagmites began to form, and when the caverns were differently situated with reference to the local drainages. (2) Remains of man are found under peat-bogs which have grown so little in modern times that their antiquity on the whole must be very great. (3) Implements, presumably made by men, are found in river-gravels so high above existing riverbeds that great physical changes must have occurred since they were accumulated. (4) One case is on record where a human bone is believed to have been found under a deposit of glacial age. (5) Human remains have been found under circumstances which indicate that very important changes of level have taken place since their accumulation. (6) Human remains have been found under circumstances which indicate great changes of climate as intervening between their date and that of the modern period. (7) Man is known to have existed, in Europe at least, at the same time with some quadrupeds formerly supposed to have been extinct before his introduction. (8) The implements, weapons, etc., found in the oldest of these repositories are different from those known to have been used in historic times.