The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

As yet no human bones have been discovered in the regular layers of the surface of the earth, so that man probably did not exist in the countries where fossil bones are found at the epoch of the revolutions which buried these bones, for there cannot be assigned any reason why mankind should have escaped such overwhelming catastrophes, or why human remains should not be discovered. Man may have inhabited some confined tract of country which escaped the catastrophe, but his establishment in the countries where the fossil remains of land animals are found—that is to say, in the greatest part of Europe, Asia, and America—is necessarily posterior not only to the revolutions which covered these bones, but even to those which have laid open the strata which envelop them; whence it is clear that we can draw neither from the bones themselves nor from the rocks which cover them any argument in favour of the antiquity of the human species in these different countries. On the contrary, in closely examining what has taken place on the surface of the globe, since it was left dry for the last time, we clearly see that the last revolution, and consequently the establishment of present society, cannot be very ancient. An examination of the amount of alluvial matter deposited by rivers, of the progress of downs, and of other changes on the surface of the earth, informs us clearly that the present state of things did not commence at a very remote period.

The history of nations confirms the testimony of the fossils and of the rocks. The chronology of none of the nations of the West can be traced unbroken farther back than 3,000 years. The Pentateuch, the most ancient document the world possesses, and all subsequent writings allude to a universal deluge, and the Pentateuch and Vedas and Chou-king date this catastrophe as not more than 5,400 years before our time. Is it possible that mere chance gave a result so striking as to make the traditional origin of the Assyrian, Indian, and Chinese monarchies agree in being as remote as 4,000 or 5,000 years back? Would the ideas of nations with so little inter-communication, whose language, religion, and laws have nothing in common, agree on this point if they were not founded on truth? Even the American Indians have their Noah or Deucalion, like the Indians, Babylonians, and Greeks.

It may be said that the long existence of ancient nations is attested by their progress in astronomy. But this progress has been much exaggerated. But what would this astronomy prove even if it were more perfect? Have we calculated the progress which a science would make in the bosom of nations which had no other? If among the multitude of persons solely occupied with astronomy, even then, all that these people knew might have been discovered in a few centuries, when only 300 years intervened between Copernicus and Laplace.

Again, it has been pretended that the zodiacal figures on ancient temples give proof of a remote antiquity; but the question is very complicated, and there are as many opinions as writers, and certainly no conclusions against the newness of continents and nations can be based on such evidence. The zodiac itself has been considered a proof of antiquity, but the arguments brought forward are undoubtedly unsound.

Even if these various astronomical proofs were as certain as they are unconvincing, what conclusion could we draw against the great catastrophe so indisputably demonstrated? We should only have the right to conclude that astronomy was among the sciences preserved by those persons whom the catastrophe spared.