THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



JUNE, 1890. 



NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 



VIII. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN AND EGYPTOLOGY. 



By ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL. D., L.H.D., 



EX-PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 



IN the great ranges of investigation which, bear most directly 

 upon the origin of man, there are two in which Science within 

 the last few years has gained final victories. 



The significance of these in changing, and ultimately in re- 

 versing, one of the greatest currents of theological thought, can 

 hardly be overestimated ; not even the tide set in motion by 

 Cusa, Copernicus, and Galileo was so powerful to bring in a new 

 epoch of belief. 



The first of these conquests relates to the antiquity of man on 

 the earth. 



The fathers of the early Christian Church, receiving all parts 

 of our sacred books as equally inspired, laid little, if any, less 

 stress on the myths, legends, genealogies, and tribal, family, and 

 personal traditions contained in the Old Testament, than upon 

 the most lofty poems, the most instructive apologues, and the 

 most powerful utterances of prophets, psalmists, and apostles. 

 As to the life of man upon our planet, by bringing together indi- 

 cations of elapsing time in the various books of the Bible, early 

 Christian commentators arrived at conclusions varying some- 

 what, but in the main agreeing. Some, like Origen, Eusebius, 

 Lactantius, Clement of Alexandria, and the great fathers gener- 

 ally of the first three centuries, dwelling especially upon the Sep- 

 tuagint version of the Scriptures, thought that man's creation 

 took place about six thousand years before the Christian era. 

 Strong confirmation of this view was found in a simple piece of 



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