Part 1 (1/2)
The Meeting-Place of Geology and History.
by Sir John William Dawson.
PREFACE
The object of this little book is to give a clear and accurate statement of facts bearing on the character of the debatable ground intervening between the later part of the geological record and the beginnings of sacred and secular history.
The subject is one as yet full of difficulty; but the materials for its treatment have been rapidly acc.u.mulating, and it is hoped that it may prove possible to render it more interesting and intelligible than heretofore.
J. W. D.
CHAPTER I
GENERAL NATURE OF THE SUBJECT
The science of the earth and the history of man, though cultivated by very different cla.s.ses of specialists and in very different ways, must have their meeting-place. They must indeed not only meet, but overlap and run abreast of each other throughout nearly the whole time occupied by the existence of man on the earth. The geologist, from his point of view, studies all the stratified crust of the earth, down to the mud deposited by last year's river inundations. The historian, aided by the archaeologist, has written and monumental evidence carrying him back to the time of the earliest known men, many thousands of years ago.
Throughout all this interval the two records must have run more or less parallel to each other, and must be in contact along the whole line.
The geologist, ascending from the oldest and lowest portions of the earth's crust, and dealing for millions of years with physical forces and the instinctive powers of animals alone, at length as he approaches the surface finds himself in contact with an entirely new agency, the free-will and conscious action of man. It is true that at first the effects of these are small, and the time in which they have been active is insignificant in comparison with that occupied by previous geological ages; but they introduce new questions which constantly grow in importance, down to those later times in which human agency has so profoundly affected the surface of the earth and its living inhabitants.
Finally, the geologist is obliged to have recourse to human observation and testimony for his information respecting those modern causes to which he has to appeal for the explanation of former changes, and has to adduce effects produced by human agency in ill.u.s.tration of, or in contrast with, mutations in the pre-human periods.
The historian, on the other hand, finds, as he pa.s.ses backward into earlier ages, doc.u.mentary evidence failing him, and much of what he can obtain becoming mythical, vague or uncertain, or difficult of explanation by modern a.n.a.logies, until at length he is fain to have recourse to the pick-axe and spade, and to endeavour to disinter from the earth the scanty relics of primeval man, much as the geologist searches in the bedded rocks for the fossils which they contain. He has even learned to use for these earliest ages the term prehistoric, and so practically to transfer them to the domain of the archaeologist and geologist.
It is evident, therefore, that if we seek for the meeting-place of geology and history, we shall find not a mere point or line of contact, but a series of such points, and even a complicated splicing together of different threads of investigation, which it may be difficult to disentangle, and which the geological specialist alone, or the historical specialist alone, may be unable fully to understand. The object of this little volume will be to unravel as many as possible of these threads of contact, and to make their value and meaning plain to the general reader, so that he may not, on the one hand, blindly follow mere a.s.sertions and speculations, or, on the other, fail to appreciate ascertained and weighty facts relating to this great and important matter of human origins.
This is the more necessary since, even in works of some pretension, there are tendencies on the one hand to overlook geological evidence in favour of written records, or even of conjectural hypotheses, and on the other to reject all early historical testimony or tradition as valueless. We shall find that neither of these extremes is conducive to accurate conclusions. Researches of a geologico-historical character necessarily also bring us in view of the early history of our sacred books. This may be to some extent an evil, as inviting the excitement of religious controversy; but on the other hand the fact that the early history incorporated in the Bible goes back to the introduction of man, and connects this with the completion of the physical and organic preparations for his advent, has many and important uses. It would seem indeed that it is a great advantage to our Christian civilisation that our sacred books begin with a history of creation, giving an idea of order and progress in the creative work. Whether we regard the days of creation as literal days or days of vision of a seer, or whether we hold them to be days of G.o.d and His working, suitable to the Eternal One and His mighty plan, and bearing the same relation to Him that ordinary working days bear to us, we cannot escape the idea of an orderly work in time. This, while it delivers the Bible reader from the extravagant myths current among heathen peoples, ancient and modern, predisposes him to expect that something may be learned from nature as to its beginning and progress. In like manner the short statements in Genesis respecting the early history of man have awakened curiosity as to human origins, and have led us to search for further details derivable from ancient monuments. The ordinary Christian who believes his Bible is thus so far on his way toward a rational geology and archaeology, and cannot say with truth that he is absolutely ignorant of the pre-human history of the earth. His notions, it is true, may be imperfect, either by reason of the brevity of the record to which he trusts, or of his own imperfect knowledge of its contents, but they give to historical and archaeological inquiry an interest and importance which they could not otherwise possess.[1]
[1] It is an interesting fact that the pecuniary means, the skill and labour expended in research in the more ancient historic regions, have to so large an extent been those of Christians interested in the Bible history. Yet some _litterateurs_, who have contributed nothing to these results, attempt to distort and falsify them in the interest of an unhistorical and unscientific criticism, and even to taunt the Bible as adverse to archaeological inquiry.
The earth has indeed, especially in our own time, and under the impulse of Christian civilisation, made wonderful revelations as to its early history, to which we do well to take heed, as antidotes to some of the speculations which are palmed upon a credulous world as established truths. We have now very complete data for tracing the earth from its original formless or chaotic state through a number of formative and preparatory stages up to its modern condition; but perhaps the parts of its history least clearly known, especially to general readers, are those that relate to the beginning and the end of the creative work. The earlier stages are those most different from our experience and whose monuments are most obscure. The later stages on the other hand have left fewer monuments, and these have been complicated with modern changes under human influence. Besides this, it is always difficult to piece together the deductions from merely monumental evidence and the statements of written or traditional history. There would seem, however, to be now in our possession sufficient facts to link the human period to those which preceded it, and thereby to sweep away a large amount of misconception and misrepresentation in one department at least of the relations of natural science with history.
I have called the subject with which we are to deal the meeting-place of two sciences. In reality, however, it might be embraced under the name anthropology, the science of man, which covers both his old prehistoric ages as revealed by geology and archaeology, and the more modern world which is still present, or of which we have written records. The main point to be observed is that it is necessary to place distinctly before our minds the fact that we are studying a period in which, on the one hand, we have to observe the precautions necessary in geological investigation, and on the other to examine the evidence of history and tradition. A failure either on the one side or the other may lead to the gravest errors.
In studying the subjects thus indicated it will be necessary first to notice shortly the history of the earth before the human period, and its condition at the time of man's introduction. We may then inquire as to the earliest known remains of man preserved in the crust of the earth, and trace his progress through the earlier part of the anthropic or human period, in so far as it is revealed to us by the relics of man and his works preserved in the earth. We shall then be in a position to inquire as to the form in which the same chain of events is presented to us by history and tradition, and to discover the leading points in which the two records agree or appear to differ.
It may be necessary here to define a few terms. The two latest of the great geological periods may be termed respectively the _pleistocene_ and the modern, or _anthropic_, the latter being the human period or age of man. The pleistocene includes what has been called the glacial age, a period of exceptional cold and of much subsidence and elevation of the land, in the northern hemisphere at least. The modern, or anthropic, is for our present purpose divisible into two sections--the early modern, or _palanthropic_, sometimes called quaternary, or post-glacial, and which may coincide with the antediluvian period of human history; and the _neanthropic_, extending onward to the present time.[2]
[2] The terms 'Palaeolithic' and 'Neolithic' have been used for the men of the Palanthropic and Neanthropic ages; but these are objectionable, as implying that these ages can be best distinguished by the use of certain stone implements, which is not the fact. I have preferred, therefore, to call the earlier races of men _palaeocosmic_, and the later _neocosmic_, where it may be necessary to refer to them _as races_; while the _periods_ to which they belong are respectively the _Palanthropic_ and _Neanthropic_. By the use of these terms all ambiguity will be avoided.
CHAPTER II
THE WORLD BEFORE MAN
Man is of recent introduction on the earth. For millions of years the slow process of world-making had been going on, with reference to physical structure and to the lower grades of living creatures. Only within a few thousand years does our globe seem to have been fitted for its highest tenant. The evidence of this is to be found in any text-book of geology. I propose here merely to present the history of the earth in a series of word-pictures, introductory to our special subject.
Our first picture may be that of a nebula, vast and vaporous, containing the mixed and unconsolidated materials of the sun and planets--a void and desolate ma.s.s, slowly aggregating itself under the influence of gravitation.