Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 70:277 (Jan 1913)
Article: Origin and Antiquity of Man
Author: Warren Upham

BSac 70:277 (Jan 1913) p. 28

Origin and Antiquity of Man

Warren Upham

After nearly forty years of special studies of the Ice Age and its glacial and modified drift deposits, which contain here and there on this continent and in Europe the stone implements and the bones of primitive man, Professor Wright has written a new book1 on the probable place, time, and way of man’s creation and early dispersal to all habitable parts of the earth. Be it by the personal design and guidance of a divine Creator, or by natural laws of evolution, in which, as Tennyson wrote,

“Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,”—

in either case we view a very grand scene reaching back to mists and uncertainties of vision in the far distance.

The first three chapters, on “The Methods of Scientific Approach,” “The Historical Evidence,” and “The Linguistic Argument,” pave the way to the more detailed studies set forth in Chapters IV and V, “Origin of the Races of Europe” and “The Origin and Antiquity of the American Indian,” and Chapters VI to XI, which give careful consideration to the evidences of man’s existence during the Ice Age, with reasons for distrusting his presence in even the

BSac 70:277 (Jan 1913) p. 29

closing part of the Tertiary era. These six chapters are successively entitled “Significance of the Glacial Epoch,” “Man in the Glacial Epoch,” “Man and the Lava Beds of the Pacific Coast,” “Remains of Glacial Man in Europe,” “Supposed Evidence of Tertiary Man,” and “Glacial Man in Central Asia.”

The last four chapters relate more specifically to the evolution and antiquity of the human species, namely, “The Physiological Argument,” “The Psychological Argument,” “The Biblical Scheme,” and “Summary and Conclusion.”

In an appendix of thirty-two pages are gathered the citations of previous writers, a few additions to the general text, and an outline of recent work of Professor N. H. Winchell, entitled “Implements deemed to be of great age from study of the Patinated Surfaces.” An excellent index of nineteen pages completes this very thorough discussion of a most interesting subject, on which, however, much yet needs to be further discovered and more amply debated.

History as known and taught in schools and colleges during the author’s boyhood and youth was limited to about three thousand years of ancient Rome and Greece, and to a computed period of nearly six thousand years since the creation of the earth and man at the beginning of the Bible record. More remote history is brought to light by the spade of the archaeologist ...