The First Men. 



201 



place. The rocks of the Permian period are said by some authorities 

 to give evidence of glacial action; and the rocks of the fifth day, or 

 Mesozoic cycle, show that it was an ago in which minor creatures and 

 .reptiles which spawn rapidly, large fowls and great aquatic monsters 

 abounded, as Genesis declares, so that it is not necessary to dwell here 

 to establish that which is the object of inquiry — the identification of 

 the sixth day. 



The sixth great period of confusion was the beginning of the Kaino- 

 zoic cycle; the sixth great period of development was the evolution of 

 the Mammalian kingdom, closing with the creation of man, an act 

 which justifies its classification as the Phrenozoic cycle. It must be 

 borne in mind, also, that there was a seventh day; and hence that 

 there must have been a seventh period of confusion, a seventh evening, 

 a seventh period of development, a seventh cycle, during which that 

 which was concealed in the "evening " was made to appear in the 

 morning. Man must have been created before the evening of the 

 seventh day, for he was created during the sixth day, after the crea- 

 tion of the lower orders of mammals, but before the close of the cycle. 

 This day must have terminated with the first evening, or period cor- 

 / responding thereto, following the creation of the animal kingdom, in 

 general. Man was created before the close of the day, or cycle, if the 

 ^author of Genesis knew whereof he affirmed. Hence, to place his crea- 

 tion after two glacial epochs, or even after one, is to do violence to the 

 narrative. Man, therefore, must have been created before the glacial 

 period, which was the evening of the seventh day. 



The existence of man during the inter-glacial or Reindeer period is 

 fully established. The memory of the last glacial period, we assume, 

 is preserved in the Persian tradition of a great climatic change, syn- 

 chronizing with the departure of their ancestors from their original 

 home; and is typified in Genesis by the symbol of the Lord God cloth- 

 ing' man with skins. The inter-glacial period, then, was the seventh 

 day, or Psychozoic cycle; the Sabbath of the creative cycles which the 

 Lord God blessed and sanctified. The condition and migrations of 

 man during the inter-glacial or Reindeer period prove that he had been 

 created and developed somewhere at the east, and can only be satis- 

 factorily explained by assuming that this creation occurred before the 

 glacial period which immediately preceded the Reindeer period; for, as 

 he followed the retreating glaciers into Europe, he must have been 

 created before their formation, in order to have matured and multi- 

 plied and acquired a migratory disposition. 



The weight of this argument for the pre-glacial origin of man rests 

 upon the interpretation of the terms "evening" and "morning" as 

 indicating a complete cycle, and the assertion of Genesis that man was 

 created on the same day with other mammals. 

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