As we saw in the last chapter, the facts proving the
great antiquity of man foreshadowed a new and even more
remarkable idea regarding him. We saw, it is true, that the
opponents of Boucher de Perthes, while they could not deny his
discovery of human implements in the drift, were successful in
securing a verdict of "Not prove " as regarded his discovery
of human bones; but their triumph was short-lived. Many previous
discoveries, little thought of up to that time, began to be
studied, and others were added which resulted not merely in
confirming the truth regarding the antiquity of man, but in
establishing another doctrine which the opponents of science
regarded with vastly greater dislike--the doctrine that man has
not fallen from an original high estate in which he was created
about six thousand years ago, but that, from a period vastly
earlier than any warranted by the sacred chronologists, he has
been, in spite of lapses and deteriorations, rising.
A brief review of this new growth of truth may be useful.
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