110 MAN : 



mates of biblical scholars equally earnest, pious, and 

 learned. Whether we turn to the Eomish fathers, or 

 to such men as Usher, Hales, Newton, Blair, and 

 Dufresnoy, we find estimates varying from four thou- 

 sand to seven thousand years ; and when the appeal 

 is made to some German divines the range is extended 

 to nearly double that amount ! * A record admitting 

 of such wide interpretations by scholars equally learned 

 and earnest, is clearly one upon which science cannot 

 base her conclusions, and all the less that it is a list 

 of family genealogies rather than an account of ethno- 

 logical successions. And even were there no discre- 

 pancies in interpretation, and no doubt as to the order 

 of Hebrew descent, it is evident that no record can 

 carry us back to the beginnings of mankind — to those 

 far-back stages of primeval life during which language 

 itself can do little more than express the necessities 

 of animal existence. 



So far then as the historical element is concerned, 

 it throws no certain light on man's antiquity; and 

 when it is considered how uncertain and debateable 

 are many events in the last two thousand years of 



* A French writer, Desvignoles (Qh/ronology of Sacred History), 

 has collected above two hundred different calculations, varying from 

 3483, the shortest, to 6984, the longest period said to have elapsed 

 between the creation of the world and the commencement of the 

 Christian era, but recently the discrepancies have become wider and 

 much more preplexing ! 



