THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 133 



monuments are of undeniable authenticity, and their teachings are 

 most valuable, but they are inscribed with no record of human 

 years, and we think geologists may wisely leave this matter where 

 the Duke of Argyle, in his address to the Royal Society, lately 

 placed it, as a doubtful ,point, in so far as geological evidence is 

 concerned, whether the mammoth lived later than we have hither- 

 to supposed, or man lived earlier. Still, as we have already stated, 

 those geologists who hold that we must reason inflexibly on 

 rates of change indicated by modern causes, will necessarily, on 

 the evidence as it now stands, maintain that the human race, 

 though recent geologically, is of very great antiquity historically. 



We must now shortly consider our third question, as to the 

 bearing of these facts and doctrines on our received views of 

 human chronology, derived from the Holy Scriptures and the con- 

 current testimony of ancient monumental and traditional history. 

 It is certain that many good and well-meaning people will, in this 

 respect, view these late revelations of geology with alarm ; while 

 those self-complacent neophytes in biblical learning who array 

 themselves in the cast-off garments of defeated sceptics, and 

 when treated with the contempt which they deserve, bemoan 

 themselves as the persecuted representatives of free thought, 

 will rejoice over the powerful allies theyhave acquired. Both parties 

 may however find themselves mistaken. The truth will in the 

 end, vindicate itself ; and it will be found that the results of such 

 careful scrutiny of nature as that to which naturalists now devote 

 themselves, are not destined to rob our race either of its high and 

 noble descent, or its glorious prospects. In the mean time those 

 who are the true friends of revealed truth will rejoice to give free 

 scope to legitimate scientific investigation, trusting that every new 

 difficulty will disappear with increasing light. 



The Biblical chronology, though it allows an unlimited time for 

 the pre-human periods of the earth's history, fixes the human 

 period within narrow limits,though it does this not by absolute state- 

 ment of figures,but rather by inference from chronological lists, with 

 respect to the computation of which there may be and has been 

 some difference, especially in the antediluvian period. Allowing 

 large latitude for these differences, we have say 2000 to 3000 

 years for the human antediluvian period, corresponding, it is to 

 be supposed, to the later post-pliocene of geologists. In this period 

 men may have extended themselves over most of the old conti- 

 nent ; and it has been calculated that they may have been nearly 

 as numerous as at present, but this is probably an exaggeration. 



