108 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



first progenitor of the human race, and handed 

 down by tradition through successive generations. 

 This would account for the distorted narratives 

 of the Creation, mingled with debasing supersti- 

 tions of every kind, that were transmitted along 

 different lines. Thus contrasting the Biblical and 

 Babylonian versions, Professor Sayce writes: 



The resemblances and differences between the Biblical and 

 the Babylonian accounts are alike striking. The polytheism 

 which underlies the one [Babylonian account] with the thinly 

 veiled materialism which overlies it, is not more profoundly con- 

 trasted with the devout monotheism of the other [the Biblical 

 account], than is the absolute want of the mythological details 

 in Genesis with the cosmological myths embodied in the cunei- 

 form poem. We pass, as it were, from the "Iliad" to solid his- 

 tory. Where the Assyrian or Babylonian poet saw the action of 

 deified forces of nature, the Hebrew writer sees only the will 

 of the One Supreme God. 1 



While, therefore, the various versions of the 

 Chaldean tablets and the Egyptian writings pre- 

 served for us are apparently perverted traditions 

 of a primal Revelation, changed by a gross and 

 carnal imagination into the idolatrous myths of 

 Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians, the true 

 account could readily enough have been provi- 

 dentially preserved by a portion of the race, that 

 retained the true faith, and so would at length 

 have been handed down to Moses, and through 

 him to the later generations. Thus the explana- 

 tion of Hugh Pope on this subject seems to be 



la The Higher Criticism and the Monuments." 



