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162 _ The Leader and Saturday Analyst: [...
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ASPIRATIONS.* THIS appears to bo the wor...
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* JttplnUhiiHfwiii tlto Xuitor, the fy/i...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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* Pre-Adamite Man.* . We Can Never Too H...
Seripture and derived froni thedlog ^ Ical considerations , 13 but inepnsiderable . The differences and difficulties in the first two chapters of Genesis have sorely perplexed him , until He has arrived at the cpnclusioii ,. "that the true way of explaining : these passages is :. to refer them "to two distinct creations , belonging 1 to periods far removed from one another ^ and occurring under conditions extremely different . " Well , then , we are to admit the pre-Adamites upon the earth without Question , except as to how they came here ; and as to this point we are assured that " nothing seems to contradict the probability that the human species , like other creatures , were brought forth abundantly ( swarmed forth at once ) by the / fiat , 'Be fruitful , and multiply ; ' and-thits at the earliest possible period overspread the earth , a ruling- and a royal race . " Further , " There is an entire difference between the pre-Adamite and Adam : ilie former we have seen
starting into being out of nothing , by a word- ^ complete at once in a twofold nature ; " but the second man ( commonly called the first ) is in all respects a contrast to the presumed first in his origin , for he is not created out of nothing 1 , but formed out of th « dust of the ground . " His predecessor had all the world for his possession ; Adam neither enjoyed nor coveted the same wide empire . " So that the first Adam , who was made but of nothing , got every thing ; and the next Adam , who was made of the durst of the earthy got very little of the earth . We submit that this seems hardly fair ; but our author must , of course , give each Adam what he thinks proper . For ourselves , as we have no connexion with the supposed first Adam , we do not think we can feel much affection for him ; and we should have dealt far more liberally with the head of our own family . With our author , however , it is according to the old proverb : First come , first served ^—and best served , too .
When did the first niah appear * chrohbibgically ? Our author thinks we may siippose liis creation took place about the middle of the sixth age , 'Hhatis . the sixth day of the biblical ^^ record ; and that the seventhday age had stillto run ere Adam Was born and Eden planted—the Sabbatic era of Genesis ii ; 1 , 2 / 3 . The length of the seventh " " must hay 0 been similar to that of the preceding six . It was a period of ;¦** holy rest , during which , as it rolled on , the cairn and . undisturbed blessedness resulting from God ' s approving smile must have spread itself byer all ereatioh . ' * It is difficult to know how to dispose ' of the pire-Adamites wheni we have them before us- ^ especially as no hint ; or indication the faintest or most distant exists to direct our thoughts aright ; yet the most readable pages of the book
ai-e the few which atternpt to depict the happy condition of that earliest racev The . pre-Adamite man was formed for worship . 4 With 'infantinei and ^ lJioly simplicity he went forth to -pluck the flowers sfrevmm his path , and as he gazed upon their beauties or inhaled their odour ? his chud-like > spirit would vise with grateful praiseto the Creator ; He gathered harvests which he may never laboriously have sowed ., apd partook of a perpetual feast from trees and plants which gave him an unfailing variety , needing no barns to stoi-e it for future-use . His fields no winter devastated ' , no locust devoured 3 arid his heart , ever promptiiig' to gratitude ; found in every new experience new reasons ' 'to make it one grea-t object of his childlike beitig to love arid praise . " . x . .
No objection ; can be made to so pretty a picfcnre , and the reader ' s displeasure can only arise from the necessity of marring it . Why make the pie'Adamites fall , and divide and end—some very brightly and others very badly P Biblical ' ground there is none for such a supposition , though obscure reference is thought to be made to this in Ezeltiel xxviii . IS , 16 , 17 , ' 18 . Abating this presumed hint , ' we can see ' ito necessity for debasing the earliest race , and dividing them into : ultimate angels and ultimate fiendsj excepting" the plain necessity of sweeping ^ them away from the face of the earth to make room fop //« sAdanjiind his'family ; for it is certain that while the whole 'generation ' of pre ^ Adamites lias possession of the stage , you cannot expect tij witness the Adamites nnd the performance of their parts . Therefore they Were tempted ; therefore some of them fell , while maiiyremahiedBteadfhst and innocent . But there is another
difficulty 3 get rid pf the ' Burners , they onglit to vanish at once ; but what of tfee unsirining ? As theyhave done nothing 1 bad , they may surely remain where they were * happy ayhd , holyi So they doubtless might , but for the coming Adam . He must of necessity be made , room for ; lie must be alone at first ; so then there i » no help for it . - Good and bad pre-Adamites are at the end of their woi'ld-lease , and quit they must . What is most singular in the author ' s lost act of this drama is , that the bad pre-Adamites are the more reluctant to go , and the good ones the more ready ; the bad etill hovering * around the scene of their former existence , hating their successors , and ready to come and delude them under any
turning and whirling table , and at any rash and presumptuous summons of profane spirit-mediums . The good have gone uprto one or more of the stars , where they think of old times and old scenes , and occasionally come down again , when specially commissioned and permitted ; but they scorn to attend to spirifc-Wealers , or table-Trappings , or American mediums . Such is the theological and biblical conception and argument . Wowever much we may admire the author ' s reverence for religious truth , . his desire for , correct biblical exegesis , and his anxious wish to amend , the current nngelology , we are bound to confess that we cannot find in . any scriptural passage , or in any theological dilemma , sufficient basis for this theory .
" Its Boientific basis , as laid down by the author , is no firrhgr or broaden AH must admit that there is , not » single remaining ' record of the entire race and rulq < pf the pre-Adamites . Neither bone noir stone in any part of the world displays one token of their existence , Yet the very animals and organisations which are supposed to iinve . been contemporaneous with thoin have left numerous
and unquestionable tokens ' of their existence . Every year among-st the three last decades has brought many . or fewer of these to light . Geological collections have , been shelved and labelled and arranged ; how is it that in no musentn , no private cabinet in Europe , have We' aiiy one 'pre-Adamite human petrifaction ? Most geologists "Would say , simply because we cannot expect to find What nev-er existed except hi imagination ; The author can say nothing more than that we may yet find them . But at this rate we should never arrive at any conclusion . The possibilities of the future ^ yould weaken or overthrow half the admitted theories of science , if possibilities alone were permitted to invalidate probabilities , and fair and almost inevitable inferences . .
When , however ,: our anonymous theorist deals with the geological part Of his subject , he so plainly displays his imperfect acquaintance . with that science , that , we are pained to think he has not submitted his pages : to some competent geologist before publication . Any geological friend would have spared , him the discredit and lis the pain of pointing' out his grpss darkness in geological chronology . Here is one proof : " The Isle of Sheppey , Dr . Mantel ! assures us , is entirely composed of the London clay- ^ -a formation recognised as belonging to the later tertiary , or pre-Adamite age . " That the Isle of Sheppey is composed of London clay is notorious enough , but to say that this formation belongs to the later tertiary age _ is ^ as notor riously wrong . Jt belongs to the ettWier tertiaries , and is itself the very formation wliich suggested Lyell ' snarne of Eocene—vindicating
the dawn of tertiary" life . To place pre-Adam there would be to intercalate man amidst geological impossibilities , and to destroy the author ' s Own arguments in other pages . But from other pages it appears that the writer Would place his pre-Adam in the pleistocene age , and it is evident that this is his meaning throughout—although he has unconsciously made a geological anachronism of some hundreds of thousands of years , which must . have intervened between the London clay and tlie pleistocene , beds . All his reasonings , however , are so tainted with his geological incompetence , that we find it impossible to make him consistent with himself and his own theory . His remarks about the fossil plants , fruits , and seeds of
Sheppey , in connection with his observations on the " but one creation ? ' of terrestrial plants and his pre-Adamite men , are below geological criticism altogether . ^ It would be easy , and is tempting ' , to place these in a ludicrous aspect , but we have no Wish tQ do more than passingly point but the Writer's ignorance of . that science'which so many good and religious men tlunk they understand , and can even pronounce upon , when they have glanced over one Or two popular books . Geritlenien may read as little or ass much as may please them on . this , science , but they should neither Write nor theorise about it until they have really mastered its details . ,-Our author has much to acquire i » this direction before aiiy geologist would condescend to argue ; with him .
His notions ori botanical science are equally crude . "Icaiipot believe , " says lie , " that any discoveries hitherto made justify the inference drawn ] by several authorities , that there were from time to time successive creations of certain species ' of plants at diiferent ages of the world . The annole provision of the third day is all that was heeded , for the formation of the carboniferous strata , " & c , & c . But there wei * e plants before the carboniferous era—Silurian and Devonian plants—and'whence came they ? Then , as to all the succeeding fossil plants having been : created inqlusively in the carboniferous era , but not developed until later ages , the idea is so remote from all the common beliefs of the fossil- ^ plant student that ifc can scai'cely be reasoned upon , and is simply absurd . Think of the fifty-six
thousand species of plants , reckoning by J ) e Candblle ( and there are many mprej , Svrappied up in the one thousand species or more ot the coal-produping 1 age ! , Yet such is the author ' s exegesis of Genesis i . 29 . Whence then came the plants of the lias and the oolites , those of the London clay and tlje plastic clay P And asto recent plants , whence' came they ? Moreover , the third creative day of Genesis , according to any . weU-corisidered and consistent g-eological syriclironism ^ mugt , by whple cycles , have preceded ^ tli 0 cartibntferous era ; and it is most philpsophiqal to consider it a corresppndihg witih the emergence of dry la . nd , and the Azoic period qf geology . On the whole ., this author's * ' Story of our Old Plunet " is neither that told , by Science nor Scripture .
We haVe not dwelt upon the question of the possibility and probability of the existence of Tertiary races of men ,, or of an anthropoid race , which might have fashioned the flint arrow-heads ( or Kelts ) so much discussed at this time ; because , although the author ' s theory is , associated to some extent with these Kelts , yet lie is not tho man to pronounce scientifically upon this very interesting point of inquiry . We hope to be able to take it up on ft future occasion .
162 _ The Leader And Saturday Analyst: [...
162 _ The Leader and Saturday Analyst : [ Feb . 18 , 1860 .
Aspirations.* This Appears To Bo The Wor...
ASPIRATIONS . * THIS appears to bo the work of a studious and amiablo man ; but wo like the character of the author , as far as it is reflected in his volume , far bettor than the volume itself . It is a Idbor sonlvn ^ tiarum , scarcely aphoristic , more like the ' Guesses at Truth , Mrs . Jameson ' s " Bbok of Sentiments , " and the different Table Talks recently given , to the world ; but , we should say , far less successful . No class of workfl require , on the whole , more , rigorous oriticium , in default of a vigorous *^ oritici « m on I ^ he part of tlieii ; authors ;— - and for this reason j there is horo no etory , no tmvail of construction , a more cftusion of thought . Any man who can write English »»«» y
* Jttplnuhiihfwiii Tlto Xuitor, The Fy/I...
* JttplnUhiiHfwiii tlto Xuitor , the fy / iritnctl X , \ f < : By Hbnuy M'Conmaok . M . D . Longman .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 18, 1860, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18021860/page/14/
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