ll, which formed the "plain of Shinar" and the hills beyond
occupied by Accadian tribes, from whose chief city, Ur, Abraham, the
forefather of the Jews, emigrated. The Assyrian documents are copies of
Babylonian originals, but the Babylonian kingdom itself was a Semitic
one founded on the ruins of an earlier population, the inhabitants of
the plain of Shinar and the mountains beyond. Some time between 3000 and
2000 B.C. the Semitic conquerors of Babylonia took possession of the
plains, and some time later conquered also the Accadian mountaineers.
The Babylonians possessed and translated the old Accadian records: the
Assyrian tablets are mostly, but not all, copies, again, of the
Babylonian transcripts. The celebrated "Creation tablets," which contain
an account closely corresponding to Genesis, are among those which were
not copied from Accadian originals; and they do not date further back
than the reign of Assur-bani-pal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks; who
reigned in the seventh century B.C. They may therefore be derived from
the Bible, not the Bible from them. It would seem from some earlier
(Accadian) tablets, that a different account of the Creation existed
among them. But though it is doubtful how far the Accadians had
preserved this account, or at least had others along with it, _they had
a seven days week_ and _a Sabbath_. All this points to _one_ original
tradition, which specified days of creation and a Sabbath, though it got
altered and distorted, so that the true account was preserved as one
among many local variations. This goes to prove the immense antiquity of
the story, which is not affected by the fact that the actual inscription
of it which we at present have, dates only about 670 B.C. The point
here, however, interesting in the legends, is that they contained the
idea of a special connection of one particular race with the Creator,
and of other races, or of one other race, besides.

As far as the possibility of bringing forward the history of mankind as
any aid to the theory of Evolution is concerned, I might have very well
let the subject alone, or even noticed it more briefly than I have done.
For, in truth, there is no _evidence_ whatsoever, and all that the
denier of creation can resort to is a supposed analogy and a probability
that the peculiarities of man could be accounted for in this way or in
that. But the main purpose of my brief allusion is to introduce the fact
that, as far as any evidence