THE NO A CHI AN FLOOD. 57 



one man, whose son, grandson, great-grandson and 

 great -great -grandson, Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, and 

 Eber, were actually still living during all these sup- 

 posed revolutions 1 . 



Indeed, if we go back from our 400 to our 4000 years, 

 the protests on these points are almost equally forcible. 

 In the matter of language, estimate how many genera- 

 tions must have passed away before the children of a 

 common parent came to vary in speech as much as 

 Chinese, Russians, Englishmen, and clucking Hotten- 

 tots. Form some estimate of the time required for the 

 rise and growth of civilization, not only in the old-world 

 centres of Nineveh and Babylon and Egyptian Thebes, 

 but in the separate and independent centres of Mexico 

 and Peru. Explain, moreover, what, on the hypothesis 

 of a common Noachian descent, must be called the rise 

 and growth of barbarism. Show, if it be possible, how, 

 amidst the rapid strides of civilization, side by side with 

 the advancement of taste, literature, and science, the 

 descendants of Noah in some cases degenerated from all 

 culture, sank away from all morality, lost all religion, 

 forgot all useful arts, even those most essential to the 

 lowest degree of comfort, the kindling of fire, the use of 

 metals, the construction of dwellings, while they learned 

 the habits and acquired something more than the inno- 

 cent shamelessness of brutes learned to prefer the flesh 

 of their own species to any other, learned to make a 

 duty in some regions of putting their parents to death, 



1 Genesis, chap. xi. 



