J. P. MacLean

“ Beneath the shade of a spreading chestnut we may behold a group—one old man ... and women and children, lounging and lying upon the ground. How dirty! What forbidding countenances!—more like furies than women. One young man, with a stone axe, is separating the bark from a neighboring tree. ”

“ The future prospect of man was not only gloomy, but foreboded he should perish along with the many species of animals that were gradually succumbing to the cold. Great fields of ice were slowly accumulating at both the poles, and at last, by the power of their great weight, assisted by some geographical changes, began to move toward the equator, crushing and grinding the great rocks, and either driving before them, or else destroying, every living thing in their relentless march. ”

“ America furnishes a better field for the antiquary than the old world. Her ancient remains are not so much injured by the decay of empires and the rude hand of war. Succeeding ages have not so much effaced these marks, and many of the remains still stand as left by the original occupants, save only the change and decay which time itself produces. America will yet be discovered. It is true the landmarks are known; but these have not been investigated so diligently as the remains of man in Europe. The Boucher de Perthes and the Dr. Schmerling are yet to come. ”

“ Not only the sturdy climate spurs him to action, but a higher type is supplanting the original savages. The brachycephalic, or round-headed, has penetrated the recesses of that wild country and brought with him the art of making more perfect implements. This new type was of short stature, having small hands and feet. If Asia be the home of man, then from that country, advanced in civilization, came the vanguard who were destined to supplant their predecessors, tame the wild beasts, and conquer the forests. ”

“ The mighty empires of antiquity must have been a mystery to many a thoughtful mind. As far back as history will carry us we not only behold the world teeming with her millions of people, but also nations rising and empires crumbling. Rollin felt the difficulties of the chronology which hampered him. He says the Assyrian empire was founded by Nimrod eighteen hundred years after the creation of man, or two hundred and twenty-four years after the Deluge, or one hundred and twenty-six years before the death of Noah. ”

“ His pillow was a stone, his retreat a cave or the boughs of a wide-spreading tree, and his clothing a natural coat of hair.
In the presence of the fierce beasts, man's domain might seem to be of short duration. Providence has ordered all things wisely. Placed low in the scale of life—brutal, selfish, prowling, yet cautious—man, by the very force of circumstances, was to develop gradually the powers of his mind. With the elephant and the mastodon he could not cope nor would they molest him. ”

“ The second supposes "that man, being as yet mute, heard the voices of birds, and dogs, and cows, the thunder of the clouds, the roaring of the sea, the rustling of the forest, the murmurs of the brook, and the whisper of the breeze. ”

“ The origin and growth of language evidently afford a great field for study, in not only tracing the development of civilization, but also in confirming the testimony of the ancients and the conclusions of the geologists. If the unity of language could not be established, there would still be left a field so great as would not lessen the interest or the importance of the subject. But a new language cannot be formed. For the sake of convenience the many varieties of language have been grouped into three great divisions, i. e., the Aryan, the Semitic, and the Turanian. ”

“ Death-dealing blows fall rapidly upon each other, the blood flows freely, the bones give way, and the weaker one has succumbed. There are fierce contentions over the common prey, and the strong impose upon the weak. True to his instinct, he is gregarious. He lives in communities; and the more daring—the hunters—having their [Pg 66] common places of meeting, fashion their weapons, and vie with each other in feats of prowess.
During the glacial epoch the condition of man must have remained unchanged, after he had supplied himself with rude stone weapons. ”

“ Those old axes of flint were great objects to his mind, and one step beyond them was a great stride in progress. That they developed but little cannot be wondered at, not only from their low type, but also from the knowledge that even in the era of history there are nations whose civilization has become fixed and stereotyped for ages; others, who, instead of advancing, have been retrograding. ”

“ We may almost fancy that we can see them in their dark and subterranean retreats, crouching round their hearths, and skilfully and patiently chipping out their flint instruments and shaping their reindeer-horn tools, in the midst of all the pestilential emanations arising from the various animal remains which their carelessness has allowed to remain in their dwellings. Skins of wild beasts are stripped of their hair, and, by the aid of flint needles, are converted into garments. ”

“ CHAPTER VI. INTER-GLACIAL EPOCH.
The glaciers have departed. Summer comes again. The forests bloom and the wild beast roams about. Many species withstood the long siege of cold; others perished; still others followed the ice as it retreated, preferring the cold to the coming heat. The floods had abated and man spread himself over the different tracts blooming with flowers and radiant with earthly splendors.
The evidences of man's existence during this period are numerous, consisting in works of art and fossil remains. ”

“ In the history of man there never has been a new language, and the languages now spoken are but the modifications of old ones. The words now used by all people, however broken up, crushed, or put together, are the same materials as were used in the beginnings of speech. ”

“ The Bible is not and makes no pretensions of being a book of science. It is designed to be a book of religion, and a history of the ancient Jews, and its references to scientific questions are only incidental. If the references to science, or the account of Creation be radically wrong, its teachings on questions of morals and religion would not be thereby invalidated. The Christian, or the Jew, has nothing to fear from the results of scientific investigation. ”

“ Man was at last prepared to face the rigors of winter, the perils of ice, and secure himself against starvation. Not content with his conflicts with nature, his brutal passion is aroused against his fellows. ”

“ The roof of their principal cave falls in, burying their weapons and utensils, and forcing them "to fly and take up their abode in another spot. The ravages of death break in upon them.... They bear the corpse into its cavernous sepulchre; some weapons, an amulet, and perhaps an urn, form the whole of the funeral furniture. A slab of stone prevents the inroad of wild beasts. ”

“ It is not incredible that God could have fashioned the world and peopled it with myriads of beings in a period of six days of twenty-four hours each. It is not incredible that a cataclysm could destroy every living creature, save an appointed few, and cover the remotest boundaries of the earth. ”

“ The glaciers, to a limited extent, have again advanced. The gigantic animals of the past age have either disappeared or are fast becoming extinct. The great cave-bear, cave-lion, cave-hyena, mammoth, and woolly-haired rhinoceros have almost become extinct. They have given way to a less fierce and less gigantic fauna. The advance of the glaciers is announced by the numerous herds of reindeer which are overrunning the forests of Western Europe, and extending as far south as the Pyrenees. ”

“ The Age of Bronze bears no direct relation to the antiquity of man, for it is largely embraced in written history. Although history does not record the events of the age of bronze in Western Europe, yet history covers the time which embraces the use of bronze. This epoch has more to do with the archæologist than the geologist. ”

“ The evidences of the antiquity of the reindeer epoch, and that it immediately followed the inter-glacial, are numerous. The vast number of the reindeer bones and horns attest to a distinct epoch, and by the remains of arctic animals, as well as the traces of glaciers, the climate must have been unlike that of the present time. The remains of the mammoth, cave-bear, and cave-lion, would not only connect this period with the inter-glacial, but also prove that a few stragglers continued to exist, at least for a short period, after the reindeer epoch [Pg 80] had begun. ”

“ As the Iron Epoch fairly establishes civilization, and belongs almost wholly to the historical epoch, it will be here briefly noticed, and then dismissed after giving a quotation from Dr. Keller. The bronze had not only prepared the way for the iron epoch, but also gave a great impulse to succeeding ages. The art of metallurgy assumed a new importance and gave new life to every movement that tended to the assistance of man. The works of bronze gave way to those of iron. ”

“ We need not, however, expect to find the proofs in Europe; our nearest relatives in the animal kingdom are confined to hot, almost to tropical climates, and it is in such countries that we are most likely to find the earliest traces of the human race." [50] Alfred R. Wallace out-distances any of his cotemporaries, for he says, "We are enabled to place the origin of man at a much more remote geological epoch than has yet been thought possible. He may even have lived in the miocene or eocene period, [Pg 60] when not a single mammal was identical in form with any existing species." ”

“ The Neanderthal man has already been described. Its structure is animal. Its history agrees with the generally received idea of primitive man as conceived by the geologist. The illustration (frontispiece) presents him bestial and ape-like. A powerful organization, and well adapted to those times. His bones tell of fearful conflicts. He lived to an old age, as the traces of every suture are effaced. His skull was very thick. The strong, prominent superciliary arches denote large perceptives, making him watchful and always on the alert. Those bones tell of a terrible conflict. ”

“ Owing to the great lapse of time it cannot be expected that many traces of man will be discovered in this early period.
Upon theoretical grounds Lyell thought it very probable that man lived in the pliocene; but in relation to miocene time, he says, "Had some other rational being, representing man, then flourished, some signs of his existence could hardly have escaped unnoticed, in the shape of implements of stone or metal, more frequent and more durable than the osseous remains of any of the mammalia." ”

“ In the first account man is made in the image of God, and to him is given dominion over the living things, and he is commanded to subdue the earth. The second account states that there was no man to till the ground, and the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. ”

“ Diodorus Siculus, Lucretius, Horace, and many other Greek and Roman writers, consider language as one of the arts invented by man. The first men, say they, lived for some time in woods and caves, after the manner of beasts, uttering only confused and indistinct noises, till, associating for mutual assistance, they came by degrees to use articulate sounds mutually agreed upon, for the arbitrary signs or marks of those ideas in the mind of the speaker which he wanted to communicate to the hearer. ”

“ Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon Dr. Schmerling for his unremitting labors. Of these labors Sir Charles Lyell has said: "To have undertaken, in 1832, with a view of testing its truth (antiquity of fossil human bones) to follow the Belgian philosopher through every stage of his observations and proofs, would have been no easy task even for one well-skilled in geology and osteology. To be let down, as Schmerling was, day after day, by a rope tied to a tree, so as to slide to the foot of the first opening of the Engis cave, where the best-preserved human skulls were found ”

“ The question why the inhabitants of a lake-dwelling of the stone age abandoned their settlements, while those of another, not many hours' or many minutes' walk distant, remained quietly living on their platforms, is of no greater importance than the inquiry why, during the middle ages, so many localities have disappeared, the names and situations of which are known to us. ”

“ The tropical climate should change into a winter of snow and ice. Man should feel it, and be benefited by the new danger. His sluggish mind should be quickened, [Pg 65] and the inventive genius should be called into action. The sun no longer could give its heat. The forests grew cold, the chilling winds swept over the plains, and the retreat in the cave was damp and forbidding. The wild beasts were either dying of cold, or else becoming clothed with thick, long hair, and retreating before the accumulating snow. ”

“ For self-defence he discovered, probably by accident, that a club was a powerful weapon with which to beat back his fierce opponent. Gradually he came to learn that a sharp flint driven into the end of a club was a safer and more deadly weapon. With this he could withstand an unequal contest.
The mode of life, together with the trials of his strength, developed his muscular system. His muscles became large and tough, and his bones thick and heavy. The earliest type of man is generally supposed to be dolichocephalic, or long-headed. The walls of the skull were thick, and the crown low. ”

“ It is possible for God to do anything save that which is inconsistent with his character. What is possible for God to do, and what He does, are two very different things. What He has done can only be told from the evidences which He has left. What He might have done is only speculation. Man can only judge from the facts presented to him. ”

“ They served against the cave-bear, cave-hyena, cave-lion, and would be of great service in the ages yet to come. By a little remodelling they could be used to greater advantage; and this change of shape was accomplished, and other uses of flint were made known.
Man's form, aspect, and true position are comprehended by the relics of the glacial age. The human bones tell a tale which any anatomist may read, and even one not well skilled in the art. The primitive type is no mystery, and those fossil bones tell of the terrific strifes of by-gone times. ”

“ Livingstone, after speaking of a half-caste man on the Zambesi, described by the Portuguese as a rare monster of humanity, "remarks, 'It is unaccountable why half-castes, such as he, are so much more cruel than the Portuguese, but such is undoubtedly the case.' An inhabitant remarked to Livingstone, 'God made white men, and God made black men, but the devil made half castes.' When two races, both low in the scale, are crossed, the progeny seem to be eminently bad. ”