132 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



to a higher civilisation, in so far as art is concerned. 

 in some of its divisions, and sank to a deeper bar- 

 barism in others, while it retained the original wor- 

 ship of God the Creator (Elohim). Hence the 

 Sethite race is designated as the sons of Adam (Beni 

 ha Adam), the true and legitimate children of the 

 first man, and the Cainites as Beni Elohim, or sons 

 of God. 1 The mixture of these races produced the 

 godless, heaven-defying Nephelim, the Titans of the 

 Old Testament, whose wickedness brought on the 

 diluvial catastrophe. These half-breeds of the ante- 

 diluvian time were in all probability the best deve- 

 loped, physically and perhaps mentally, of the men 

 of their period ; and but for the Deluge they might 

 have become masters of the world. 



This question of different races and religions 

 before the Flood is, however, deserving of a little 

 farther elucidation. The names Elohim and Jahveh 

 are used conjointly throughout the Book of Genesis 

 except in its first chapter, and their mode of occur- 

 rence cannot be explained merely on the theory of 

 two documents pieced together by an editor. It has 

 a deeper significance than this, and one which indi- 

 cates a radical diversity between Elohists and Jahvists 

 even in this early period. In the earliest part of the 

 human history, as distinguished from the general 

 record of creation, the two names are united in the 



1 That this is the true meaning of the expressions in Genesis vi. I 

 cannot doubt. See discussion of the subject in the work cited in 

 previous note. 



