Some persons are troubled at the discussion of grave and delicate questions that seem to set revelation and science at variance. As for us, who can never admit the possibility of a conflict between the Bible and nature—those two divine revelations—or that they ought ever to be completely separated, we deeply regret the complete absence of our clergy at these great sessions, while those of France and Italy were represented in a brilliant manner.
“I am well aware,” says M. Chabas, in an able preface, “that the materialistic tendency of savants of very considerable attainments in anthropology and other branches of prehistoric research, withholds many men whose concurrence would be of value to science from entering the arena where such points are discussed.” But timid minds are becoming more reassured. Therefore, as the Abbé Bourgeois happily remarked at the Congress of Paris, “We shall perhaps have to add to the antiquity of man, but we ought also to detract from that of fossils.” Besides, hitherto, in spite of so much research, man alone has been found intelligent and with a moral sense of his acts; and in the animal kingdom there is not a single proof to confirm even remotely Lamarck's theory of transmutation revived by Darwin. When so many are appealing to science to the exclusion of God from the universe, it would be well for others to endeavor to make him manifest by the aid of science.
“What!” exclaims Mgr. Meignan, in his brilliant work on The World and Primitive Man according to the Bible, “ought the exegete to make no account of the progress of human knowledge? Can the savant find neither profit nor light in the wisdom of Holy Writ? We think otherwise. The theologian who first studies nature [pg 642] will be better enabled to explain certain passages of the Bible; and the naturalist and archæologist, in their turn, will find it advantageous to study the real meaning of Genesis.” The human mind enters upon a course of examination more or less legitimate in subjecting religion itself to the trial of controversy; it is almost a duty imposed on the conscience of all who are not vainly endowed with reason to enable themselves to give a reason for the belief that is within them. “The task of the apologist,” says the eminent prelate just quoted, “is never at an end in our restless age.” The disagreement that some seem to apprehend only exists in superficial or sceptical minds.
If the Bible is not a scientific revelation, neither does it contradict science, and especially in the bold outlines drawn by Moses. Science, as it progresses, sets up its landmarks, so to speak, beside the immutable bounds of faith; it is so with the laws of light, as well as the fundamental principles of geology. Revelation assigns no limits to the antiquity of the world, and allows the beginning in which God created it to recede to as remote a period as is wished, and geology corroborates the Scripture account of successive creations. Is not the unity of origin of the human species, distinctly declared in both Testaments, connected with all the hypotheses that have excited so much opposition in our day? I do not mean the unity of the human species, a doctrinal question very different from the other, and not necessarily connected with it. But the unity of origin of the human race is now taught and demonstrated by the greater part of those versed in natural history; it is a scientific truth. As to the existence of man in the tertiary epoch, it is far from certain, though sustained by many highly respectable men.[220] M. Evans, the Secretary of the Geological Society of London, whose name is an authority on things pertaining to anthropology and palæontology, expressed himself in these terms at a meeting of the British Association at Liverpool last year [1871]: “We cannot,” said he, “possibly make any prediction as to the discoveries that still await us in the soil beneath our feet; but we certainly have no reason to conclude that the most ancient traces of man on the earth, or even on the soil of Western Europe, have been brought to light. At the same time, I must confess that the existing evidence of man in the miocene period, and even in the pliocene, in France (it will be seen further on that this has since been asserted in Portugal), appears to me, after the most careful examination on the spot, very far from convincing.”
Besides, the word prehistoric has only a relative exactness of meaning. In Belgium, prehistoric man comes down to the century before the Roman Conquest. A vast number of the monuments and remains so discussed in our day might be included in the historic period. In most cases, too absolute a signification is given to the word prehistoric, conveying an idea of remote antiquity far beyond the bounds of chronology. It is under the influence of this preconceived opinion that the most distinguished [pg 643] and independent investigators have allowed themselves to be carried away with the apparent revelation of an entirely new world. In hearing of the millions of ages attributed to quaternary man, one feels greatly behind the times, and asks himself anxiously if there really is a science that has a good right to make man so old, and that affords means of ascertaining, as has been stated, what our ancestors were observing in the heavens on the 29th of January, 11,542 years before Christ. This feeling of astonishment must be still livelier in those for whom the insoluble problems of antiquity extend back to less than two thousand years. We do not know the site of Alesia, and we pretend to know the habitat and manners of villages of more than three hundred thousand years before the downfall of the Gallic nationality! It should be confessed that the science which has so recently sprung up, and which has for its object the study of human labor anterior to the use of metals, is neither so firmly established nor so positive in its deductions that we should blindly accept such bold theories. This is one of the reasons that should encourage more men of serious pursuits to take a part in these debates, as to which it is allowable to hope that the truth will some day be discovered at an equal distance from any exaggeration.
We shall have occasion to return to these questions which occupied the Congress of Brussels. This preamble appeared necessary as a justification for confining ourselves to a plain, simple analysis of the proceedings of the congress—others can review them better than we.
We will only add one word more. The field for discussion had been prepared in a wonderful manner by the recent publication of the excellent work in which the learned and active director of our Royal Museum of Natural History has condensed his researches.[221]
The opening session took place the 22d of August. The day was spent in receptions, speeches of welcome, replies, the installation of the board, and other official courtesies which we spare the reader. The following days there were two sessions a day. The morning of the 23d of August was devoted to the first question in the programme. There was no one better fitted to develop it than M. Dupont, the Chief Secretary of the congress, and the most active of its organizers. He had already given a clear outline of its history in his discourse at the first session of the day before. It was started in Belgium in 1829, and kept up by the researches of Schmerling, who may be regarded as the Champollion of prehistoric anthropology; but our illustrious fellow-citizen was not encouraged in his discoveries, and it may be said that he was, to a certain degree, a martyr to the scientific prejudices of his time. His labors, occurring at a time when Cuvier's authority was at its height, could not counterbalance the influence of that great genius, who declared that man could not be found among fossils' bones, and that the vestiges of the human race in the caverns came under the general rule. No one then could have dreamed of referring these remains to the epoch of the mammoth, and it was scarcely admitted, till within a dozen years, that man was contemporary with the animals of the geological periods which preceded ours. Schmerling, but little befriended by circumstances, was deceived as to what caused the introduction of this débris into the [pg 644] caverns. He attributed it to sudden inundations. Some years later, Mr. Spring opened the way to the true theory, which allows the reconstruction of the ethnography of geological epochs; but he could not continue his researches, and it was not till 1861 that Lartet's report concerning the caverns of Aurillac at length established a collection of decisive facts. In 1863, M. Dupont was appointed to explore the caverns of the province of Namur, which gave promise of discoveries of unusual interest; it was important that our country, after having taken so large a part in establishing the first principles of this new science, should not remain inactive in the movement to which it had led. The immense result of researches continued without relaxation for seven years, summer and winter, and the valuable remains thus found, which are the ornament of our principal museum, prove that the direction of the task could not have been confided to better hands.
M. Dupont, laying aside the arbitrary classifications that had hitherto been adopted for determining the antiquity of remains found in caverns, introduced the geologic method in his researches, which is founded upon principles almost incontestable and evidences of indubitable truth. The chronological data furnished by this method are generally of mathematical exactitude. “With this point to start from,” says M. Dupont, “I was sure of clearly determining the fauna and ethnographical remains of each epoch to which the objects discovered in the various subterranean explorations belonged.”[222] In pursuing the application of this method, our young and already illustrious savant was enabled to show the evolution of physical and biological phenomena, and to reconstruct the ethnography of the age of stone. Whatever may be thought of the reality of the facts brought forward, it must be confessed that no ordinary mind could have formed such bold conceptions.
After a communication from Dr. Hamy on the flint-works of France and England at the time of the mammoth, the Abbé Bourgeois discussed the question of tertiary man. The learned professor's clear, fluent language, the distinction of his manners, and his open, animated countenance [pg 645] so completely won the goodwill of the audience that thenceforth, whenever he spoke, his appearance in the tribune was hailed with unanimous applause.