362 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



moved among them and controlled them with a conscious 

 and uncontested superiority. Let us see what can be 

 learned of the habits and endowments of this primeval 

 man. 



Was primeval man created in Europe, where we have 

 the earliest traces of his existence, or was he here an emi- 

 grant from the East ? In answer to this question we can 

 produce no decisive facts. There are, however, considera^ 

 tions of weight. In all the later epochs, even of the Age 

 of Stone, there was evidently a continuous migration from 

 the direction of the Asiatic hive. The movement of popu- 

 lation has always been westward in regions to the west of 

 the Orient, and it has always been eastward in regions to 

 the east of the Orient. The westward wave overflowed 

 Europe, and in later days crossed the Atlantic. The east- 

 ward wave populated Tartary and China, and, as may be 

 presumed, dashed across the Straits of Behring, and flooded 

 the American continent at a remote period. To say the 

 least, till the American shores were reached by the west- 

 ward wave from Europe, the tide of population in America 

 had always set from north to south. The primeval inhab- 

 itants of North America were Asiatics in their features, 

 their language, and their arts, and tradition speaks of 

 them as moving from the direction of Asia. These move- 

 ments of human populations, like radiating streams, from 

 the western part of Asia, certainly afford a presumption 

 that the only people of whose movement we have neither 

 history, tradition, nor buried monument, proceeded also 

 from the direction of the Orient. 



From the same quarter of the world proceeded most of 

 our domestic animals and plants, and in the same quarter 

 of the world the perpetually uttered prophecies of the ge- 

 ologic ages proclaimed that the line of animal life should 

 have its culmination. We have, then, strong presumptive 



