Dr J. W. Dawson on the Antiquity of Man. 63 



domesticated auimals ; tliey had discovered the use of the 

 metals, and invented many useful arts, though there must 

 have been a vast, scattered, barbarous population. They 

 had split into two distinct races, some portions of which at 

 least had sunk to a state presumably lower than that of any 

 modern tribe, since these latter are all amenable to the 

 influences of civilisation and Christianity, while the former 

 seem to have been hopelessly depraved and degenerate. 

 At the same time they had much energy for aggression and 

 violence ; and it would seem that these giants of the olden 

 time were in process of extinguishing all of the civilisation 

 of the period when they were overwhelmed with the deluge. 

 This is described in terms which may indicate a great sub- 

 sidence, of which the Noachian deluge was the culminating 

 point, in so far as Western Asia was concerned. The sub- 

 sidence, unless wholly miraculous, may have commenced at 

 least at the beginning of the 120 years of Noah's public 

 life, and possibly much earlier, and the re-elevation may 

 have occupied many centuries, and may not have left the 

 distribution of land and water, and consequently climate, in 

 the same state as before. At a ver}^ early period of this 

 subsidence, if there were men in Europe, they would be 

 perfectly isolated from the original seats of population in 

 Asia, and so would the land animals, their contemporaries. 

 There is, further, nothing in the Mosaic account to prevent 

 us from supposing that the existence of many species was 

 terminated by this great catastrophe.* These are some of 

 the conditions of the biblical deluge, which we might much 

 further illustrate, were this a proper place for doing so, but 

 those stated will suffice to show precisely in what points 

 the new doctrines of geologists in regard to the antiquity of 

 man appear to conflict with this old narrative. 



When we carefully consider the geological facts, in so 

 far as they have been ascertained, it seems to us that the 

 discrepancy may be stated thus. Eeasoning on the geo- 

 logical doctrine that all things are to be explained by mo- 

 dern causes, and insisting on a rigid application of that 

 doctrine, we must infer that the date of the introduction of 



* See " Archaia, " pp. 216 et seq., and pp. 238 et seq. ; King's Geology and 

 Religion, " " Delnge." 



