MAN'S ANTIQUITY. 



WHEN we reflect on the magnitude of the pre-Christian 

 Alexandrian libraries, as well as the magnificent appoint- 

 ments attaching to and lavish wealth expended upon the 

 ancient University of the capital of the Ptolemies, we 

 seem almost unable to realise the fact that people of 

 education and intellect, until quite lately, believed that 

 all this intellectual and literary magnificence had reached 

 that pitch of excellence in the short space of less than 

 four thousand years. In this period of time it was 

 believed that man had so far risen in intellectual capacity 

 from the absolutely ignorant condition of the first pair 

 as described in Genesis as to have reached that state of 

 mental perfection possessed by the professors in the 

 Alexandrian, Athenian, and Sicilian schools. We can see 

 Professor [Euclid pointing out on the blackboard how, 

 the sides of a rectilinear polygon all touching a circle, 

 the area of the polygon is equal to the rectangle con- 

 tained by the radius of the circle and the semi-perimeter 

 of the polygon ; Professor Archimedes would be explain- 

 ing the theory that, if a force act upon a body, the 

 measure "of the force in absolute units is numerically 

 equal to the time-rate of change of momentum and to 

 the space-rate of change of kinetic energy ; Professor 

 Eratosthenes would be impressing upon his class the im- 

 portance of the knowledge of the globular shape of the 

 earth ; and Professor Hipparchus would be startling his 

 hearers by stating that he would show them how the 

 failure of the sun to reach the same point in the same 

 time in his annual circuit (according to the old geocentric 

 theory) caused the vernal equinoxial sign to give place 

 to the next zodiacal sign every 2,152 years. 



Here was a galaxy of intellectual attainments indeed ! 

 With such a picture before our eyes we are calmly asked 

 to believe that so little time as less than four thousand 



