290 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 



after another has been changed, until, in the language 

 of Mr. Tylor,* " it may be asserted that the doctrine of 

 the unity of mankind now stands on a firmer basis than 

 in any previous ages." 



20. Respecting the antiquity of man upon the earth, 

 it is very plain that the differences between the Hebrew, 

 Samaritan, and Greek Pentateuch are such as to forbid 

 any settlement of the question by a reference to the 

 Scriptures. Long before the modern discussions on this 

 subject biblical scholars doubted if it was the design of 

 the Scriptures to reveal either the antiquity of man or 

 the age of the earth. Yet the discovery of human re- 

 mains at Abbeville and other places, the remains of lake- 

 dwellings in Switzerland, and the shell heaps in Den- 

 mark, are nowise inconsistent with the view of a 

 degradation of some races from a more highly civilized 

 condition. The ruins of ancient nations certainly point 

 to an early civilization which was remarkable for extent 

 and splendor. As to the time required for these changes, 

 Dana, in his " Manual of Geology," says: " The evidence, 

 as it at present stands, does not necessitate the carrying 

 of man back in past time, so much as the bringing for- 

 ward of the extinct animals toward our own time." 



21. The numerous varieties of the human species may 

 be divided into four principal races, which comprise sec- 

 ondary and mixed races, each including a number of 

 families and nations: 1st. The White race, also, but er- 

 roneously, called Caucasian. Its original country, judg- 

 ing from the comparison of languages and historic testi- 

 mony, lay between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the 



*Art., Anthropology, in Encyc. Brit., ninth edition. 



