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Show 270 RECENT ORIGIN OF MAN. [Ch. XVI. We cannot conclude this chapter without recalling to the render's mind a memorable passage written by Berkely n century ago, in which he inferred, on grounds which m.ay be termed strictly geological, the recent date of the creatiOn of man. " To any one/' says he, " who considers that on digging into the earth such quantities of shells, and in sm~e places bones and horns of animals are found sound and entire, after havino- Jain there in all probability some thousands of years; 0 it should seem probable that guns, medals and implements in metal or stone might have lasted entire, burie<.l under ground forty cr fifty thousand years if the world had been . so old. How comes it then to pass that no remains are found, no antiquities of those numerous ages preceding the Scripture accounts of time; that no fragments of buildings, no public monuments, no intaglias, cameos, statues, basso-relievos, medals, inscriptions, utensils, or artificial works of any kind are ever discovered, which may bear testimony to the existence of those mighty empires, those successions of monarchs, heroes, and demi-gods for so many thousand years ? Let us look forward and suppose ten or twenty thousand years t~ come, during which time we will suppose that plagues, famine, wars and earthq'ttakes shall have made great havoc in the world, is it not highly pmbable that at the end of such a period, pillars, vases, and statues now in being of granite, or porphyry, or jasper, (stones of such hardness as we know them to have lasted two thousand years abo~e ground, without any considerable alteration) would bear record of these and past ages? Or that some of our current coins might then be dug up, or old walls and the foundations of buildings shew themselves, as well as the shells and stones of the p ·rimeval world, which are preserved down to our times* ? " ships whiclt were '}'Weviously floating to disappcat· entit•cly, with the exception of the tops of their masts. llesicles, we infer from the various na.natives, that the subsiuences were very unequal at uifi'I!reut neighboW"ing points. I have great pleasure in stating, that on my requesting Mr. De la Bechc to send mo more exact particulars, resrecting the present state of the harbour of Port Royal, he has orderecl a survey to be made. "' Alciphron, or the Minute Philoso1)her1 vol. ii. pp. 84, 85. 1732. Ch. XVI.] RECENT ORIGIN OF MAN. ~'71 That many sio-ns of th f o e agency o man would have lasted at least as long as ''. th e s1 1 e 11 s o f t 11 e pn.m eval world," had our race been ~~ ancien~, we are as fully persuaded as Berkely; and we anticipate With confidence that many et1ifices and implements of human workmanship, and the skeletons of men, and casts of the human form, will continue to exist when a great part of the present mountains, continents, and seas have dis~ppear~d. Assuming the future duration of the planet to be md~fimtely protracted, we can foresee no limit to the perpetuatiOn of some of the memorials of man, which are continually ent?mbed in the bowels of the earth or in the bed of the ocean, unless we carry forward our views to a period sufficient to allow the various causes of change both igneous and aqueous, to remodel more than once the entire crust of the earth. One complete revol~tion will be inadequate to efface every monument of our existence, for many works of art might enter ao-ain an~ aga~n into the formation of successive eras, and es~ape obliteration ev:n though the very rocks in which they had been for ages Imbedded were destroyed, just as pebbles included in the conglomerates of one epoch often contain the organized. re~ains of beings which flourished during a prior era. Yet It IS no less ti'Ue, as a late distinguished philosopher has declared, " that none of the works of a mm·tal being can be eternal*." 'l'hey are in the first place wrested from the hands of man,. and lost as far as regards their subserviency to his use, ~y t!1e I~strumentality of those very causes which place them In situatiOns where they are enabled to endure for indefinite periods. And even when they have been included in rocky strata, when they have been made to enter as it were into the solid framewoi·k of the globe itself, they must nevertheless eventually perish, for every year some portion of the earth's ct·ust is shattered by earthquakes or melted by volcanic fire, o.r ground to dust by the moving waters on the surface. "The l'Iver of Lethe/' as Bacon eloquently remarks, 11 runneth as well above ground as below i·." * Davy, Consolations in Travel, p. 276, t Essay on the Vicissitude of Things. |