{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_64499/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_64499","id":"gutenberg_64499","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64499","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Science - Biology","Category: Science - Earth/Agricultural/Farming","Deluge","Evolution","Natural selection"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1870 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price.\n\n                                DARWINISM.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n\n                           THE NOACHIAN FLOOD.\n\n\n                                A LECTURE\n\n                             DELIVERED BEFORE\n\n                   THE TORQUAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY,\n\n                             JAN. 31ST, 1870,\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                    BY\n\n                       THOMAS R. R. STEBBING, M.A.,\n\n         _Late Fellow and Tutor of Worcester College_, _Oxford_.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                  London\n                            MACMILLAN AND CO.\n                                  1870.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                 OXFORD:\n\n    BY T. COMBE, M.A., E. B. GARDNER, E. P. HALL, AND H. LATHAM, M.A.,\n                       PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NOACHIAN FLOOD.\n\n\nDARWINISM implies almost throughout that no universal Deluge has drowned\nour globe, either within the last ten thousand years, or even within a\nperiod indefinitely longer.  Let us speak with due respect of the\ncontrary belief.  It _seems_ to rest upon the testimony of a Volume the\nmost precious in the world.  It was taken for granted till a few years\nback as much in science as in religion.  For a while, the arguments that\nbegan to be raised against it were met by counter-arguments so plausible,\nand the objectors differed so widely among themselves, that unscientific\nopinion had a kind of right and prudence in adhering to that which had\nbeen taught for centuries, and was still taught without deviation in\nnursery, and school, and pulpit.\n\nWe should have asserted a better right and shown a higher prudence, had\nwe waited, in a matter which concerned science full as much as it\nconcerned religion, till, by learning facts and weighing arguments, we\nhad become able to form an opinion no longer unscientific, or, at the\nvery least, to appreciate the difficulties involved in the ancient\nbelief.\n\nWe are forced to take a controversy of this kind as it stands; otherwise,\nthere is a simple principle which ought to make all controversy on the\nsubject needless.  All authors endowed with common sense, let alone\ndivine inspiration, use language which their intended readers may be\nexpected to understand, and language appropriate to the scope and design\nof their writings.  Unless, therefore, we suppose that the Old Testament\nwriters proposed to teach natural science to the Hebrew nation, we ought\nto expect from them what we actually find: as to natural phenomena, past\nand present, they use the language not of far-advanced knowledge and\nminute particular research, but simply the language current in their own\nday and nation.\n\nBut, setting aside the general principle, in the present instance there\nis a second possibility of quashing the controversy, if it can be shown\nor made probable that the author, whose narrative is in question, never\nmeant to imply that which for thousands of years has been held to be his\nmeaning.\n\nThe whole point at issue is the _universality_ of the Noachian Deluge,\nand the narrative has been thought to be uncompromising in its\ndeclarations that all the earth, to the very mountain-tops, was indeed\nenveloped in water, and, excepting the handful rescued in the ark, that\nall men and cattle and creeping things and fowls of the air were\ninexorably destroyed.  But to this view of the narrative there is more\nthan one objection upon the very surface of the narrative itself.  And,\nby way of preface, let it be remarked how vague and indefinite is the use\nin ordinary language of such terms as \u2018all\u2019 and \u2018every\u2019 and \u2018universal.\u2019\nFor instance, if a popular lady gives a kettledrum, we say, \u2018all the\nworld was at it,\u2019 although 500 persons could not have been squeezed into\nthe rooms without being suffocated; or we say, \u2018so and so is a thing\nwhich every school-boy knows,\u2019 when we only mean that a good many lads of\na particular age, in a particular rank of life, and belonging to one\nparticular country, have most probably been taught it.  And again we say,\n\u2018smoking is universal with the Dutch,\u2019 without implying that every baby\nin Holland has a pipe instead of a rattle.  You are not to suppose that\nthis is a view of language invented for the occasion, frivolously\nexplaining grave and sacred composition by the trivialities of common\nspeech.  On the contrary, it is precisely to the unquestioned prevalence\nof such phraseology, in all but the most exact scientific writing, that\nthe late Dr. M\u2018Caul appealed, and appealed successfully, against more\nthan one of the objections to the authority of the Pentateuch, which were\nraised some time ago by the well-known and ingenious arithmetician who\npresides over the see of Natal.  When we read that \u2018there went out a\ndecree from C\u00e6sar Augustus that _all the world_ should be taxed: and\n_all_ went to be taxed, _every one_ into his own city,\u2019 are we to infer\neither that the clever practical Roman decreed the taxation of barbarians\nover whom he had not the faintest shadow of control, or that every\nIsraelite, without exception, found and visited his ancestral home in\nPalestine\u2014merchants from Gades and Ophir and Tarshish, slaves and\nprisoners, sucking children, bed-ridden old men, dying sufferers?  We\nshall not, if we are wise, shut up either C\u00e6sar Augustus or the\nEvangelist St. Luke to so preposterous a meaning.\n\nIn this and ten thousand other instances, our general knowledge of the\nattendant circumstances, or what we call \u2018the nature of the case,\u2019\nsupplies the necessary exceptions.  To have them all drawn out in detail\nwould be tedious and troublesome.  Suppose a glorious comet is about to\nmake its appearance, and some astronomer publicly advises every one to be\non the look-out for it on a certain night, how ridiculous would he appear\nif he made express exception of persons on the other side of the globe,\nof persons immured in dungeons, of persons not yet born, of persons who\nwere blind, of persons who were dead!  Yet an author, writing some three\nor four thousand years back, and borrowing perhaps from picture-records,\ncertainly from the traditions, however delivered, of an age long anterior\nto his own, when language was far less ample and precise than it has\nsince become, is treated as though every word must bear the full and\nexact force which it would have in a carefully-written treatise upon\nlogic in the present day.  We may assume that the author either had sound\nand accurate information in the ordinary course of human tradition, or\nelse that he was endowed with a superhuman knowledge of the historical\nevents in question.  But, on either assumption, what conceivable warrant\nhave we for imagining that he was deprived of common sense?  Either he\nknew the contradictions which natural science offers to the belief in a\nrecent universal deluge, or he did not know them.  If he knew them, we\nmay infer from his silence that his narrative was not open to those\ncontradictions; in other words, that the deluge of which he speaks was\nnot universal.  If he did not know them, his ignorance points to the same\nconclusion: otherwise, we shall have a divine miracle, intended for the\nwarning and the benefit of the human race, yet so contrived that all its\nmost surprising circumstances should be absolutely unknown to one half of\nmankind, and as absolutely incredible to the other half.\n\nThe historical account informs us that \u2018the waters prevailed exceedingly\nupon the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven\nwere covered.  Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the\nmountains were covered.\u2019  But Europe possesses mountains rising to a\nheight of more than 10,000 cubits or 15,000 feet\u2014one peak in Asia is\n29,000 feet above the level of the sea\u2014so that, on the common\ninterpretation, the waters of the flood must have risen to a thickness\nabove the ordinary sea-level of nearly 30,000 feet over the whole of the\nglobe.  But, on this supposition, the narrative is not only bewildering\nand morally impossible, but positively untruthful, for it declares the\nphysical means employed in the production of the flood to be the\nfountains of the great deep and the rain from heaven\u2014means entirely\nsufficient to produce a partial flood over a limited area, but utterly\nand ludicrously inadequate to produce a total deluge enveloping \u2018all the\nhigh hills under the whole heaven.\u2019  The notion is self-contradictory\nthat the ocean can be employed to raise its own level, or that its\ngeneral height can be increased by the rain which it is its own part to\nsupply.  Nor is there any indication afforded that a supernatural supply\nof water was added to our planet, to the extent of several hundred\nmillions of cubic miles of liquid, which would have been required for the\npurpose of drowning the Caucasus and the Alps and Teneriffe and\nPopocatapetl and Chimilari.  We must consider also the difficulty of\nbreathing, and the intense cold that would have been experienced at that\nstupendous altitude.  There is the old question of space in the ark;\nthere is the old question of the food-supply, sufficient and appropriate,\nto be stored and sorted for its various occupants, carnivorous and\nherbivorous, beasts of prey, carrion-birds, and amphibious monsters.  But\nwhat are these compared with the question how life could be sustained in\nthe bitter freezing atmosphere, thousands of feet above the line of\nperpetual snow, by creatures accustomed to the lowlands of the tropics?\nSupposing, however, the atmosphere to have been completely warmed by the\nrise of the ocean, or even if the air within the ark was kept warm by its\nenormous crowd of denizens, we are confronted by a new difficulty, one\nthat might seem laughable and improper to mention but for its vast and\npressing importance in our own days, thwarting the physician, perplexing\nthe statesman, baffling the chemist and the engineer.  To this supposed\nepitome of the world\u2019s inhabitants, shut up for months within the ark,\nwho were the scavengers?\n\nBut suppose every one of these problems to be solved by a miracle,\nalthough of such miracles not a hint is given, there still remains the\nstatement to be dealt with, that \u2018God made a wind to pass over the earth,\nand the waters assuaged.\u2019  Surely this, if nothing else, is conclusive\nthat the writer had all along been describing a local and partial deluge\nupon which a wind could have some sensible effect, not an universal flood\nwrapping all the mountains of the globe in water, in which case the\nmightiest wind that ever was, or could be dreamed of, could only have\nlaid bare the surface of the land by piling up great hills and precipices\nof water upon the ocean.\n\nWhen we wish to expose the miracles of a false religion or of a\nsuperstitious aberrant creed, we point out, as the case may be, that they\nare frivolous, useless, unmeaning, devoid of adequate motive, the end\nachieved and the means employed bearing no reasonable proportion; or we\nshow that the testimony in their favour is inconsistent with itself, or\nthat the consequences which should have flowed from the miracle, had it\nbeen genuine, are certainly wanting, unless, to bolster up one extreme\nimprobability, a hundred others are invented and swallowed.  To every one\nof these imputations the common theory of the Noachian Deluge lies open.\nBut concede a few grains of common sense to the narrator; read his\nnarrative in the spirit in which such a person must have written it;\nremember that he is not writing a scientific treatise, nor using the\nphraseology of modern Europe; bear in mind that he is speaking in an\nidiom no longer or now but seldom used, yet a just and noble idiom, which\nascribes to God all that is done upon earth, whether good or evil, the\nworks of man and the common processes of nature, as well as things\nsuperhuman and miraculous; and, with these considerations before us, we\nshall save the venerable record from every imputation, either of folly or\nof falsehood.\n\nThat which we have described to us is a vast penal catastrophe sweeping\naway some great centre of civilization by means of a terrible inundation.\nAlong some ocean-border the far-stretching plains were dotted thickly\nwith towns and villages.  There were fields waving with corn; the vine\nand the olive, the orange and the palm abounded; there were cattle\nfeeding in green pastures beside the still waters; there were populous\ntribes and nations carrying on all the business and revelry of life; they\nbought, they sold, they builded, they planted, they were marrying and\ngiving in marriage, when suddenly the fountains of the great deep were\nbroken up, and the earthquake wave rolled in upon them, and swept all the\nbeauty and the glory and the sin remorselessly away.  At the same time,\nthe angry heavens were overcast, and the floodgates of the clouds poured\ndown their volumes of ceaselessly-descending rain.  The distant mountains\nwere torn from the sight; nay, every high hill under the whole heaven was\nitself covered and enfolded in a liquid veil, for every rill was now a\ntorrent, every tiny silver thread of a cascade now a dark unbroken\navalanche of waters.  One family alone, alone obedient to the warning\nwhich all had received, were saved amidst this universal ruin, and took\nwith them into the ark of their refuge specimens of every bird and beast\nand creeping thing that their own country produced, and that was in any\nway serviceable to man.  When cloud and mist had rolled away from the\nmountain-tops, when the face of the ground was once more dry\u2014with these\ncreatures they stocked their new settlement.  The well-watered plain was\nspeedily replenished; the vine flourished; the cattle brought forth\nabundantly; the children of the patriarch multiplied rapidly and spread\nfar and wide over their rich and undisputed inheritance.\n\nSuch is the narrative as it glimmers through the haze of forty centuries,\nonly told in the original with unrivalled simplicity and force, grander\nthan any description by forbearing to describe, told as one would tell\nit, who in that convulsion of nature had lost kindred, friends and\ncountrymen, as one who had seen the whole world, so far as he knew it or\ncared for it, foundering in the waves, and yet had lived on through all\nthe unutterable calamity to see himself once more surrounded by fruitful\nfields and smiling homesteads, and all that might make what was to him\nemphatically a new world the counterpart of the old.\n\nSome may permit themselves for a moment to set aside the limitation we\nhave suggested to the number of animals in the ark as fanciful and\nunwarranted.  It will be proper therefore to draw out the consequences\nattaching to the old opinion.  We find from the words of the narrative,\nthat the patriarch Noah was intrusted with the task of collection.  To\nachieve it, then, he must have gone in person, or sent expeditions, to\nAustralia for the kangaroo and the wombat, to the frozen North for the\nPolar bear, to Africa for the gorilla and the chimpanzee; the\nhippopotamus of the Nile, the elk, the bison, the dodo, the apteryx, the\nemeu and the cassowary must have been brought together by vast efforts\nfrom distant quarters.  The patriarch or his agents must have been\nendowed with a supernatural knowledge of natural history far surpassing\nSolomon\u2019s or that of our own times, that they might properly distinguish\nvarieties and species, so that no species might be omitted and none\nrepresented by more than one variety.  To accomplish this with the\nminutest insects, they must have been provided with powerful microscopes.\nEvery portion of the dry land of the globe must have been accessible to\nthem; every jungle, cavern, and ravine.  The little islands that lose\nthemselves in mid-ocean must all have been ransacked; the search, too,\nthat might not neglect any acre of ground in all the continents of the\nworld, would be distracted with the most varied and incongruous pursuits.\nSheep, game, caterpillars, beasts of prey, snails, eagles, fleas and\ntitmice, must all have their share of attention.  Unusual pains must be\nemployed to secure them uninjured.  They must be fed and cared for during\na journey, perhaps, of thousands of miles, till they reach the ark; they\nmust be hindered from devouring one another while the search is continued\nfor rats and bats and vipers and toads and scorpions, and other animals\nwhich a patriarch, specially singled out as just and upright and a lover\nof peace, would naturally wish and naturally be selected to transmit as a\nboon to his favoured descendants.\n\nIt might be asked how, with the supernatural knowledge requisite for\ncollecting all the terrestrial animals of the globe, and the unique\nopportunity for observation afforded by a residence of some months with\nthem in the ark, no more scientific classification was arrived at than\nthat into birds and beasts and creeping things?  But letting this pass,\nor scattering it and other objections to the winds by inventing a miracle\nto explain the gathering together of the animals, we shall then have to\ngive some account of their re-distribution.  Instead of worrying\nourselves with the problem, shall we at once solve it by asserting that\nthey were miraculously re-transferred to the habitations from which they\ncame?  This will be a highly satisfactory plan, if only it will stop the\nmouths of those inquisitive persons who never know when they are beaten\nin an argument.  But one cavil may easily be foreseen, requiring a new\nmiracle to satisfy it; for many of the animals must either have been\nmiraculously supplied with provisions, or miraculously enabled to do\nwithout them; or else, to take a single instance, two spiders would have\nbeen limited to a couple of flies, and when the flies had become extinct,\nbecause devoured by the spiders, the spiders also would have become\nextinct through having no more flies to devour; and thus their\npreservation in the ark, at the expense of a great many unrecorded and\nhighly improbable miracles, would have been utterly useless.\n\nSuppose, however, that they were spread over the earth again by the slow\nprocess of natural distribution.  Certain perplexities, indeed, may have\narisen when they first issued from the ark, when the cobra and the\nrattlesnake, the hungry wolf and the relentless tiger were let loose upon\nthe impoverished world and its defenceless inhabitants.  For at that\nconjuncture to have destroyed even one cruel and venomous beast might\nhave blotted out a whole species.  It is surely a little remarkable that\nravenous beasts and birds of prey should have been limited, even while in\nthe ark, to feeding upon animals in a ceremonial or ecclesiastical sense\nclean; but if, after they had left the ark, and had once more to provide\nfor themselves, the wily panther and the treacherous hyena must be\nimagined debating before every meal whether their victim belonged to the\nsevens of the clean or the couples of the unclean animals, shall we not\nturn in pity and vexation from any view that involves and admits so\nmonstrous a supposition?\n\nBut we will concede that every creature bore a charmed life, that it\nmight not perish by famine or violence till it had propagated its kind.\nWe should then expect to observe that species had distributed themselves\nover the globe in lines either tortuous or direct, single or branching,\nbroad or narrow, but all diverging from a common centre.  Yet nothing of\nthe kind is found.  On the contrary, the species of the new world differ\nfrom those of the old, the species of one continent from those of\nanother. {16}  The marsupials of Australia and Polynesia are generically\ndistinct from all other animals on the globe except the opossum.  The\nelephant of Africa is not the same species as the elephant of India: so\nwith the lion, so with the rhinoceros.  The apes and baboons of the old\nworld are nowhere to be found in America, nor the American monkeys\nanywhere in the old world.  In Madagascar, separated from Africa by less\nthan the breadth of England, all the species except one, and nearly all\nthe genera, are peculiar. {17}  Everywhere species are found limited in\ntheir range by natural barriers, such as climate, rivers, mountains,\noceans.  Are we to suppose that the prisoners could scramble into their\nprisons, and then suddenly became incapable of scrambling out again?\nEverywhere, as a rule, this range is consistent with the hypothesis of an\norigin central to the range, inconsistent with that of an origin distant\nfrom it.  Where, as on mountain ranges, we find, contrary to the general\nrule, the same species in different localities, the migration from the\ndoor of the ark loses all semblance of probability, unless we are pleased\nto imagine that creatures, now without the instinct of migration, for a\nlong time possessed it, and roamed about the world through many a sultry\nplain to pick out a hill-side here and there with a temperature suited to\ntheir constitutions.  But the exceptional phenomenon, otherwise so hard\nto account for, Darwin has admirably explained, by pointing out that\nspecies adapted to a low temperature would naturally have occupied\nlowlands in the Glacial Period, from which, as the cold gradually grew\nless and less intense, they would as naturally have retired, some of them\nnorthwards, others to the cool heights of various mountains.\n\nThat there was a Glacial Period, when great icebergs travelled over\nEngland, a period geologically as but of yesterday, though enormously\nmore remote than any historical dates, is now beyond all question.\nEqually beyond question is it that countless ages and generations of\nliving beings on the earth preceded that Glacial Period.  And, added to\nthis, we find that there are forms of life just where they would have\nbeen left by the effect of that period, had there been an unbroken\nsuccession from that time to this, and just where it is most unlikely\nthey should be found, had they been forced to travel to those habitations\nfrom the door of the ark within the practically insignificant period of\n4300 years.\n\nBut still further, we may compare the world of life before the Flood with\nthe world of life since.  And here surely it needs not the genius of\nDarwin or Lyell or Owen to perceive the conclusiveness of the argument\nwhich their genius has pointed out and enforced.  For instance, where the\nmarsupials now live, there lived marsupials in ages long before Noah, as\nthe fossil remains testify.  The fossils are fossil marsupials, but\nmarsupials of species now extinct.  So that the \u2018door of the ark\u2019 theory\nrequires us to believe that the marsupials found their way to Australia,\nleaving no traces of their route on land, crossing seas which they never\nsubsequently re-crossed, and planting themselves precisely in that region\nwhich other marsupials, generically the same but specifically different,\nhad occupied before them.\n\nWe are to believe this of countless other species in all parts of the\nworld.  We are to believe that they slowly and in many generations worked\ntheir way back to these quasi-ancestral homes, and yet neglected to\noccupy vast tracts equally or even better adapted to their wants.  We\nmust believe also that some of the fleetest, strongest, and most\nsagacious animals, as the horse and the elephant, failed to trace out the\nabodes of their ancient representatives, since America, when discovered a\nfew years ago, possessed these quadrupeds only in fossil and in no living\nspecies. {19}\n\nThere is indeed one animal, whose powers of contrivance would account for\nits distribution over the globe, even supposing it to have begun with a\nsingle family, not more than 4300 years ago, and to have ranged from a\nsingle centre.  Man is that animal.  Yet, if all the other facts that\nbear on the universality of the Noachian Deluge were in an agreement with\nit as entire as their irreconcileability is utter and complete, still the\ncircumstances of the human race alone would disable us from believing\nthat the Flood of Noah\u2019s epoch extended over all the globe.  With other\nanimals it might be advanced that the different species and main\nvarieties had been represented in the ark and were thence disseminated;\nbut in the case of man we are precluded from such an explanatory device\nby the express terms of the diluvian record.  If the Noachian Flood was\nuniversal, then from Noah alone must be descended all the races of man\nnow upon the earth: all the great and curious variations they display\nmust have been evolved, not in countless generations as Darwinism\nsupposes, but in some two or three hundred or less.  From Noah alone must\nhave sprung within a mere handful of centuries races so widely unlike one\nanother as Greeks and Negroes, Jews and Egyptians, Saxons and Ojibbeways,\nCaffirs and Hottentots, Fuegians and Patagonians, Californians and\nChinese, Arabs and Esquimaux.  In the same archipelago we have the Malay,\nthe Papuan, and the dwarf snub-nosed Negrito. {20}  To give the contrast\nbetween the two former in the words of Mr. Wallace:\u2014\u2018The Malay is of\nshort stature, brown-skinned, straight-haired, beardless, and\nsmooth-bodied.  The Papuan is taller, is black-skinned, frizzly-haired,\nbearded, and hairy-bodied.  The former is broad-faced, has a small nose\nand flat eyebrows; the latter is long-faced, has a large and prominent\nnose, and projecting eyebrows.  The Malay is bashful, cold,\nundemonstrative and quiet; the Papuan is bold, impetuous, excitable and\nnoisy.  The former is grave and seldom laughs; the latter is joyous and\nlaughter-loving,\u2014the one conceals his emotions, the other displays them.\u2019\nSuch is the description and contrast of two types of mankind\ngeographically separated from one another by an interval of not more than\n300 miles; yet the line which separates these two races of the human\nfamily is almost exactly coincident with that deep-sea line which forms\nthe boundary between two great zoological provinces.  Either, then, in\nthese two distinct but neighbouring localities, the whole multitude of\nspecies, man included, must have been undergoing variation simultaneously\nfor tens of thousands of years, or else the differences in the whole\nmultitude, man included, must have been already established, or nearly\nso, when first they stepped forth in singular procession from the door of\nthe ark.  But the former alternative, which is the Darwinian, is\nconsistent with the record of the Noachian Flood in implying that the\ninundation was only partial; while the latter alternative contradicts the\nrecord in an essential point on which it is perfectly explicit, by\nnecessitating the presence in the ark of more than one human family.\n\nAs long as we are content to speak of 4000 years or so, some one might be\ntempted to fancy, however erroneously, that such a period would be\nadequate to produce the existing varieties of mankind, because there is\nsome evidence of comparatively rapid changes of colour having taken place\nunder the influence of climate, and because new types of features appears\nto be forming with a noticeable progress under the absolutely unique\ncircumstances which have governed the recent colonization of North\nAmerica.  Unique those circumstances are, because never before has there\nbeen so much mingling of the blood of different nations and races in a\nnew and unoccupied field, with much to stimulate and nothing to curb or\nrepress variation.  Never before have men\u2019s minds and bodies in every\nfaculty been so taxed and strained to activity by the very superabundance\nof their resources, the virgin soil of a new country, an inherited\ncivilization, enormous and ever-enlarging facilities for doing, for\nliving, moving, and learning\u2014facilities sometimes that cannot be declined\nor escaped from, though they \u2018fret the pigmy body to decay, and\no\u2019er-inform the tenement of clay.\u2019\n\nBut, in truth, there is no question of 4000 years in the matter; for\nthere were black people in the time of Herodotus and in the time of\nSolomon.  Already in the time of Moses there existed a race in Palestine\nso different from the Israelites, that the first Hebrew explorers were\ndaunted by the sight of them, although, in fact, they were looking on a\nrace no longer in its prime, but one that was dying out.  Egyptian\nmonuments, dating back to the same period and earlier, give\nrepresentations of Africans, Asiatics and Europeans, with their physical\ncharacteristics then as now unmistakeably distinct; they portray the\nNegro as the Negro still is both in colour and in features. {23}\n\nIf it took only 800 years, then, which is the interval between the Flood\nand the birth of Moses, to originate and establish types so distinct as\nJews, Egyptians, Negroes, and Anakim, all gathered together in a little\ncorner of the world, might not Nature, having done so much in so short a\ntime for the highest animal, do a little more in a longer time for lower\nanimals, and so supply that origin of species by variation for which Mr.\nDarwin contends?  Would not the obvious inference be that Nature had done\nso, if it were not fancied that such an origin of species was still more\nrepugnant to the Book of Genesis than even a limitation of the area\ncovered by the Flood?  But the Darwinian theory, happily for itself, is\nnot dependent upon any supposition so incredible as one which would\nwarrant us in expecting among the descendants, for example, of William\nthe Conqueror, people as little like one another as John Bull and John\nChinaman, Uncle Sambo and the last of the Mohicans.  There are\ncircumstances of immense weight to convince us that certain marked\ndivisions of mankind originated in the regions which they are now\noccupying.  There are other circumstances preponderating for the common\norigin of mankind.  Darwinism has at length shown how these phenomena can\nbe reconciled, by simply connecting the history of man with that vast\nduration of life upon the globe which geological science has unveiled.\nThe likenesses among races of men demand a common parentage for all those\nraces; the unlikenesses can only be accounted for on the view of an\nisolation immensely protracted of one race from another.  Thus the\nprimary origin is common to all; the secondary origin is peculiar to\neach: but now that the primary origin has been proved to be so vastly\nmore remote than was once supposed, the secondary origin recedes of\nitself into a far distant past, to give time for differences to arise and\ndevelope, since, if the actually existing unlikenesses were only skin\ndeep, instead of affecting, as they do, the bones of the skeleton and the\nwhole fibre of the mind, they would still be too great to admit a common\nderivation of the whole human family from the patriarch Noah.\n\nWhat Geology teaches to demonstration is, that all parts of the dry land\nhave been not once only but many times under the waters of the ocean; but\nit teaches likewise to demonstration that at least for many and many an\nage, almost beyond our powers of conceiving duration of time, there has\nbeen no total submergence of the land.  That interchange of lake and sea\nwith isle and continent which is now going on under our eyes, has been\ngoing on for ages innumerable.  By this and kindred means human beings,\nlike all kinds of animals and all kinds of plants, have at intervals\nexperienced severance into groups and isolation.  Thus has mankind been\nbroken up into distinct families, at first with no line of demarcation\nexcept the geographical, but gradually in successive generations becoming\nmore and more unlike in manners, morals, language, features,\nintelligence, and civilization.  But since the era of the Noachian Deluge\nneither has there been time for Nature, with her slow though certain\nprocesses, to effect so great a reconstruction of barriers as to break up\nthe human family, if till then continuous and united; nor, if there had\nbeen time for the geographical severance, would there have been time for\nthe constitutional changes.\n\nAmong the ancients some believed that the sun, moon, and stars were in\nreality about the size which they appear to the unassisted eyesight;\nothers supposed the vault of the sky to be a revolving dome of solid\ncrystal pierced with little holes through which men saw in starry shapes\nthe fire of the ethereal region beyond it.  Persons with such ideas of\nspace and physical science might not readily have accepted on the moment\nthe Copernican system of astronomy.  In the same way persons with a\nnarrow and limited view of the duration of time may find a difficulty in\nreceiving arguments based on or implying the enormous extent of it, which\nall sciences are now combining to demonstrate.  But this mental\nincapacity, the result of false education and early prejudice, may be\ndefied to resist any real investigation of the facts or study of what has\nbeen written upon them.  Let any man of mature mind and average intellect\nread through Sir John Lubbock\u2019s \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 Mr. Darwin\u2019s \u2018Origin\nof Species,\u2019 and Sir Charles Lyell\u2019s \u2018Principles of Geology,\u2019 and retain\nif he can the opinion that our globe was first peopled about 6000 years\nago, and subsequently all but depopulated by an universal Flood.  Let him\nsee, indeed, whether he can read Sir Charles Lyell\u2019s account of the\nprogress of opinion and controversy on these subjects and refrain from\nblushing.  He will recognize in that account a turmoil and clamour of\nfools and philosophers, of laymen and divines.  He will have to set to\nthe credit of intelligent humanity and enlightened Christendom a long\ntissue of pious frauds, Jesuitical defences, arguments based on imaginary\nfacts, and facts perverted by imagination, till he comes down to the\npresent time and finds a great multitude of all classes at length agreed\nin affirming that life has endured on the globe with unbroken continuity\nthrough a past as yet unfathomable.  His own mind, he will perceive, has\nactually reached maturity without having admitted the voice of this\nmultitude, although to apply almost literally the words of his great\nMaster, \u2018If these should hold their peace, the stones would cry out.\u2019\n{26a}\n\nThe world and its wonders are of no mushroom growth, although even the\nmushroom, which is commonly supposed to spring up in a single night,\nrequires a much longer period, often many weeks, for its production.\n{26b}  The Book of Genesis itself most clearly warns any careful reader\nagainst attempting to build a chronology upon the brief memoranda of\nnames and dates which for other reasons are inserted in it.  For, taking\nthem simply as they stand, Shem, the son of Noah, is represented as long\nsurviving the birth of Isaac, while Abraham, the father of Isaac, appears\nas the contemporary of a vast number of different and strange tribes and\nnations, Egyptians, Philistines, Canaanites, Syrians, and many more,\nbesides the Chaldeans, from among whom he came.  To find a parallel to\nall this, we should imagine our own Edward III, instead of dying in 1377\nas he did, living on and on to the present day, a forgotten old man, not\nnoticed in the page of history throughout 500 eventful years, during\nwhich the whole of Europe was becoming peopled with descendants of\nhimself and his father, men speaking languages mutually unintelligible,\nholding creeds mutually abhorrent, with strange diversities in dress,\nmanners and government, and some prevented by national custom from even\neating at the same table with guests of another neighbouring and kindred\ntribe.  In vain should we search through history for any actual parallel,\nfor any instance of developments so extraordinary, and estrangements so\ncomplete, occurring within a space of only 500 years.  If all the nations\nspoken of as contemporary with Abraham were only 500 years distant from\nthe Flood, as the Book of Genesis shows them to have been, we may be\ncertain that they could trace back their lineage, independently of Noah\nand his family, far beyond the era of the Deluge.  The monumental\nevidence of Egyptian chronology carries us back to a Pharaoh reigning\nsome three or four hundred years before that date. {27a}  The Book of\nGenesis introduces us to another Pharaoh reigning some 400 years after\nit.  Are we to set aside the monumental evidence, and make this later\nPharaoh a descendant of Noah, reigning as a powerful monarch, while\nAbraham, the rightful heir of a patriarchal monarchy over all the earth,\nwas nothing but a wandering shepherd?  Religion, morals, civilization, as\nfar as we know anything about them in those ages, whether we regard their\nadvancement in some quarters or their decay in others, all protest\nagainst having their progress cramped into those four or five hundred\nyears.  They protest against being ascribed with all their conspicuous\ndiversities to the offspring of one man, whose son, grandson,\ngreat-grandson and great-great-grandson, Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, and Eber,\nwere actually still living during all these supposed revolutions. {27b}\n\nIndeed, if we go back from our 400 to our 4000 years, the protests on\nthese points are almost equally forcible.  In the matter of language,\nestimate how many generations must have passed away before the children\nof a common parent came to vary in speech as much as Chinese, Russians,\nEnglishmen, and clucking Hottentots.  Form some estimate of the time\nrequired for the rise and growth of civilization, not only in the\nold-world centres of Nineveh and Babylon and Egyptian Thebes, but in the\nseparate and independent centres of Mexico and Peru.  Explain, moreover,\nwhat, on the hypothesis of a common Noachian descent, must be called the\nrise and growth of barbarism.  Show, if it be possible, how, amidst the\nrapid strides of civilization, side by side with the advancement of\ntaste, literature and science, the descendants of Noah in some cases\ndegenerated from all culture, sank away from all morality, lost all\nreligion, forgot all useful arts, even those most essential to the lowest\ndegree of comfort, the kindling of fire, the use of metals, the\nconstruction of dwellings, while they learned the habits, and acquired\nsomething more than the innocent shamelessness of brutes\u2014learned to\nprefer the flesh of their own species to any other, learned to make a\nduty in some regions of putting their parents to death, in others, of\neating their dead bodies. {28}  Such customs we have on record four\ncenturies before Christ, such customs on record as existing nineteen\ncenturies after.  Will any one attempt to persuade us that the savages of\nAndaman and the Feejee Islands are cousins, through an ancestor no more\nremote than Noah, of Chatham and Wilberforce, and Lesseps and Brunel?\n\nTraditions of a Deluge, it is true, are found almost everywhere.  The\nreason doubtless is that almost everywhere some tremendous calamity of\nthis description has at one time or another occurred.  Inundations on a\nsmall scale are common and frequent, but on a scale great enough to\nsurprise the imagination and become traditional in the memories of a\npeople, they would naturally be rare and infrequent in the extreme, so\nthat the fact of such an experience belonging to the history of so many\ndifferent races, is but another proof, or at least another indication, of\nthe antiquity of man.  If stress is to be laid on the points of\nsimilarity between the traditions, as proving that every land has been\nravaged by the waters of a flood, equal stress may in fairness be laid on\nthe points of difference, as proving that not one common universal Deluge\nis spoken of, but many separate and partial floods, distinct in time, in\nplace, and in results.  If stress again is to be laid on the tradition\nbecause it is common to so many tribes, let equal importance be granted\nto the traditions of time among the Chaldeans and the Egyptians, the\nChinese and the Hindus, who reckon the years of their uninterrupted\nhistories by tens of thousands. {29}\n\nFinally, we may ask, where are the traces of so tremendous and\nunparalleled a convulsion as one that could wrap the whole globe in\nwater, and hold all its d\u00e6dal beauty for many months in that drowned\ncondition, till a tempest still more furious and unparalleled drave\nheaven and earth, the clouds and ocean, once more asunder?  We know how\nthe little trilobite in the Devonian seas behaved in its hour of peril\nmillions of years back; we know what food men ate long ages before the\nFlood, what weapons they used, what houses they built, what animals they\ntamed; but what became of man and beast and bird and forest in the\nsupposed universal Deluge no one knows.  The signs and natural monuments\nof the catastrophe, which should have been visible or discoverable on\nevery side, can nowhere be ascertained,\u2014things that the waters should\nhave swept away or torn down they have left undisturbed, shell-mounds and\nglacier moraines and boulderstones on the mountainside; while the great\nmuseum of the dead which they should have formed, one would think, over\nall the earth, to constitute one striking and indisputable geological\ndate, as well as a world-wide monument of religion, is nowhere to be\nfound.\n\nWhat became of flower and herb, of creatures that live between the zones\nof high and low water, of mollusk and coral and fish that require an\nappropriate depth and a fitting temperature in their liquid homes, it\nwill be useless to speculate, if, after all that has been urged upon\nother points, there are some who still think that the description in\nGenesis is the description of a Flood that prevailed over all the world,\nand intend still to believe in such a Flood, and to teach it as a part of\nreligious doctrine, notwithstanding any argument or scientific proof to\nthe contrary.  For them we can do no more than commend to their daily\nreflection a few lines from the lives of two famous men:\u2014\u2018In spite,\u2019 says\nDr. Wilson,\u2019 alike of the science and the devout religious spirit of\nColumbus, the Salamanca divines pronounced the idea of the earth\u2019s\nspherical form heterodox, and a belief in antipodes incompatible with the\nhistorical traditions of our faith: since to assert that there were\ninhabited lands on the opposite side of the globe, would be to maintain\nthat there were nations not descended from Adam, it being impossible for\nthem to have passed the intervening ocean.  This would therefore be to\ndiscredit the Bible, which expressly declares that all men are descended\nfrom one common parent.\u2019 {31a}  And thus another author describes a\nwell-known incident in the life of Galileo:\u2014\u2018Clad in a penitent\u2019s\nsackcloth, the mighty, self-relying philosopher and genius fell upon his\nknees, and, with his hands laid on the Holy Evangelists, declared that he\nabjured, detested, and would never again teach the doctrine of the sun\u2019s\nstability and the earth\u2019s motion.  Having confirmed his oath in writing,\nand promised to perform the enjoined penance, he rose from his knees a\npardoned man; and turning about to one of his friends, stamped on the\nground and pronounced in an emphatic whisper, \u201cEppure si muove,\u201d\n{31b}\u2014but still it _does_ move.\u2019\n\nAs the antipodes exist, as the earth goes round the sun, and as the Bible\ncontinues to be true, in spite of the theologians and inquisitors at\nSalamanca and at Rome, so will it continue to be true and full of truth,\nwhen at length it shall be acknowledged, as it will be, that there is\nnothing universal about the Noachian Deluge except the disbelief in its\nuniversality.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n\n\n\nBY THE REV. T. R. R. STEBBING.\n\n\n                               _DARWINISM_:\n\n                 _A Lecture delivered before the Torquay_\n                        _Natural History Society_,\n\n                            _Feb. 1st_, 1869.\n\n  _London_: _Simpkin_, _Marshall and Co._\n  _Oxford_: _T. and G. Shrimpton_.\n  _Torquay_: _E. Cockrem_, 10, _Strand_.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                        _LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME_.\n\n                             _A Translation_.\n\n                    _With Illustrative Passages from_\n                            _English Authors_.\n\n  _Oxford_: _T and G. Shrimpton_.\n  _London_: _Whittaker and Co._\n  _Cambridge_: _Hall and Son_.\n\n                               _Price_ 5s.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                               _EVENTIDE_:\n                  _A Book of Prayer for the Schoolroom_.\n\n                       _London_: _Bell and Daldy_.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES.\n\n\n{16}  Lyell, Principles of Geology, ii. 332.\n\n{17}  Lyell, ii 344.\n\n{19}  Lyell, ii. 336.\n\n{20}  \u2018The Malay Archipelago,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 448.\n\n{23}  \u2018Genesis of the Earth and of Man,\u2019 p. 117; quoted in Sir J.\nLubbock\u2019s \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 p. 314.\n\n{26a}  A religious and supremely orthodox poet of the last century\nenquires, \u2018Where is the dust that has not been alive?\u2019\u2014Young, \u2018Night\nThoughts,\u2019 Night IX. l. 87.\n\n{26b}  \u2018Mushrooms and Toadstools.\u2019\u2014Worthington E. Smith, p. 17.\n\n{27a}  \u2018Genesis of the Earth and of Man,\u2019 pp. 113, 114.\n\n{27b}  Genesis, chap. xi.\n\n{28}  Sir John Lubbock, \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 pp. 338, 346, 452;\nHerodotus, iv. 26.\n\n{29}  See Mill\u2019s \u2018History of British India,\u2019 book ii. ch. i. and notes.\n\n{31a}  \u2018Prehistoric Man,\u2019 Dr. Daniel Wilson, p. 101.\n\n{31b}  \u2018The Daughter of Galileo,\u2019 by the author of \u2018Mary Powell,\u2019 p. 283.","title":"Darwinism.  The Noachian Flood: A lecture delivered before the Torquay Natural History Society, Jan. 31st, 1870","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":7476}