120 GREAT MEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 



born. Whatever inay be thought of the accuracy of these figures, 

 there can be no doubt whatever that these generations were slowly 

 moving ones. When we look further back than Abraham we find 

 six or eight rapidly moving generations of nobodies. In other 

 words, we find that the Biblical record of ages corresponds exactly 

 with the Biblical estimate of greatness. As there does not appear 

 to be anything in the history itself requiring that this should be so, 

 we may conclude that it is an accurate, or at least a relatively 

 accurate, statement of facts as they existed. As it corresponds 

 exactly with the theory of use-inheritance as here explained, I cer- 

 tainly have no reason to question its accuracy. 



REMARKABLE ANCESTRY OF MOSES. 



Moses was the son of Amram, who was the son of Kohath, who 

 was the son of Levi. From the birth of Levi to the birth of Moses 

 was 185 years, which divided by three gives 61 2 /z years for each 

 generation. Amram married his aunt, consequently the mother of 

 Moses must have been the daughter of a very old man. Moses 

 was three years younger than Aaron, and his sister, at the time of 

 his birth, was old enough to be trusted with the very delicate diplo- 

 matic mission of interviewing the daughter of Pharaoh. What- 

 ever may be the actual figures for the ancestry of Moses there can 

 be no doubt but he takes a high birth-rank. 



Levi was the brother of Joseph and takes the birth-rank of 

 [81] from his father Jacob. The previous ancestry we have already 

 traced back in the case of Joseph, so that we have for Moses six 

 generations in which not a single one has a birth-rank less than 

 [59]. This is a most extraordinary ancestry and is not paralleled 

 by any other known record. While these figures are extraordinary 

 they are not actually past belief. The elder Cato had a son when 



