-a civilization which, according to the
Scripture history, is derived from that of the primeval Cushite
empire, which extended from the plains of Shinar over all Southeastern
Asia, but was crushed at its centre before the dawn of secular
history. We have now little reason to doubt that Moses, when he
studied the learning of Egypt, held converse with men who saw more
clearly and deeply into nature's mysteries than did Thales or
Pythagoras, or even Aristotle.[12] Still later the remnants of old
Nineveh have been exhumed from their long sepulture, and antiquaries
have been astonished by the discovery that knowledge and arts,
supposed to belong exclusively to far more recent times, were in the
days of the early Hebrew kings, and probably very long previously,
firmly established on the banks of the Tigris. Such discoveries, when
compared with hints furnished by the Scriptures, tend greatly to exalt
our ideas of the state of civilization at the time when they were
written; and we shall perceive, in the course of our inquiry, many
additional reasons for believing that the ancient Israelites were much
farther advanced in natural science than is commonly supposed.

We have, however, no positive proof of such a theory, and it is
subject to many grave objections. The narrative itself makes no
pretension to a scientific origin, it quotes no authority, and it is
connected with no philosophical speculations or deductions. It bears
no internal evidence of having been the result of inductive inquiry,
but appeals at once to faith in the truth of the great ultimate
doctrine of absolute creation, and then proceeds to detail the steps
of the process, in the manner of history as recorded by a witness, and
not in the manner of science tracing back effects to their causes.
Farther, it refers to conditions of our planet respecting which
science has even now attained to no conclusions supported by evidence,
and is not in a position to make dogmatic assertions. The tone of all
the ancient cosmogonies has in these respects a resemblance to that
of the Scriptures, and bears testimony to a general impression
pervading the mind of antiquity that there was a divine and
authoritative testimony to the facts of creation, distinct from
history, philosophical speculation, or induction.

One of the boldest and simplest methods of this kind is that followed
by the authors of the "Types of Mankind," in the attempt to assign a
purely human origin to Genesis