228 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



race. That the earliest civilization is scientifically 

 traced back to the very locality in which the Scrip- 

 ture places it is another rather remarkable fact 

 for any one who may have been inclined to ques- 

 tion the authenticity of the inspired Books. The 

 common traditions of the nations, however per- 

 verted, going back to a state of original happi- 

 ness, to the Fall, to the deluge, etc., are striking 

 verifications of Scripture facts. The inspired 

 writers may doubtless have availed themselves of 

 the same primitive traditions, given at the source 

 of the human race before the Flood, and again 

 spread with the division of the tongues and tribes, 

 from a single source after the Noachian deluge. 



Radiating from the various centers of civiliza- 

 tion, whether by adventure or accident at sea, 

 whether fleeing from justice or seeking new homes, 

 as the younger sons may often have gone forth 

 with their wives to found new settlements, these 

 early pioneers might readily lose touch completely 

 with their former civilization and proceed farther 

 and farther into the uninhabited plains or forest 

 clearings that promised them a more ready sub- 

 sistence or an escape from the dangers threaten- 

 ing them. Thus such refinements of civilization 

 as had existed among them would quickly be lost, 

 and the way through barbarism to savagery might 

 soon be traced. Their elevation to a higher stage 

 would then come, not so much through any efforts 

 of their own, but through what anthropologically 



