EARL* HISTORY 119 



than the notion that, because 3000 years B.C. 

 we have evidence of an advanced civilisation 

 in Chaldea and in Egypt, this must have been 

 preceded by a long and uninterrupted progress 

 through many thousands of years from a savage 

 state. Two facts alone are sufficient to show the 

 folly of such a supposition. First, the intervention 

 of that great physical catastrophe which separates 

 the palanthropic and neanthropic periods ; and 

 secondly, the testimony of history in favour of the 

 arts of civilisation originating with great inventors, 

 and not by any slow and gradual process of evolution. 

 According to all history, sacred and profane, many 

 such inventors existed even in the palanthropic and 

 early neanthropic ages, and transmitted their arts 

 in an advanced state to later times. The Book of 

 Genesis testifies to this in its notices of Tubal Cain 

 and Jubal ; and the monuments of Chaldea and 

 Egypt show that metallurgy, sculpture, and archi- 

 tecture were as far advanced at the very dawn of 

 history as in any later period. It is true that Genesis 

 represents its early inventors as mere men, albeit 

 'sons of God/ while they often appear as gods or 

 demi-gods in the early history of the heathen nations ; 

 but the fact remains that then, as now, the rare 

 appearance of God-given inventive genius is the sole 

 cause of the greater advances in art and civilisation. 

 Spontaneous development may produce socialistic 

 trades' unions or Chinese stagnation, but great gifts, 

 whether of prophecy, of song, of scientific insight, 



