In this he grapples
first of all with the difficulties presented by the early date
of Egyptian civilization, and the keynote of his argument is the
statement made by an eminent Egyptologist, at a period before
modern archaeological discoveries were well understood, that
"Egypt laughs the idea of a rude Stone age, a polished Stone age,
a Bronze age, an Iron age, to scorn."
Mr. Southall's method was substantially that of the late
excellent Mr. Gosse in geology. Mr. Gosse, as the readers of
this work may remember, felt obliged, in the supposed interest
of Genesis, to urge that safety to men's souls might be found in
believing that, six thousand years ago, the Almighty, for some
inscrutable purpose, suddenly set Niagara pouring very near the
spot where it is pouring now; laid the various strata, and
sprinkled the fossils through them like plums through a
pudding; scratched the glacial grooves upon the rocks, and did
a vast multitude of things, subtle and cunning, little and
great, in all parts of the world, required to delude geologists
of modern times into the conviction that all these things were
the result of a steady progress through long epochs.
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