; that to suppose that
the present races and tongues are all derived from one man (Noe), who
lived only two thousand B.C., is a monstrous impossibility; still more
so, to believe that the countless thousands of species of animals which
populate the world were collected from the four quarters of the globe,
were housed and fed in the Ark, landed on Mount Ararat, and thence
spread themselves out over the world again regardless of interjacent
seas. Hence the Bible story of human origins is a mere myth; man has not
fallen, but has risen by slow evolution from some ancestor common to him
and apes, at a remote period, long sons prior even to the miocene
period, which shows man to have been then as obstinately differentiated
from the apes as ever. Therefore "all did not die in Adam," and seeing
this is the foundation of the dogmatic Christianity invented by Paul,
the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. [45]

And indeed, given that the Bible means what Mr. Laing says it means, and
that science has proved what he says it has proved, that the two results
are incompatible, few would care to deny. As regards the latter
condition, let us see some of his reasonings. We are told that "modern
science shows that uninterrupted historical records, confirmed by
contemporary monuments, carry history back at least one thousand years
before the supposed creation of man ... and show then no trace of a
commencement, but populous cities, celebrated temples, great engineering
works, and a high state of the arts and of civilization already
existing." [46] Strange to say, Mr. Laing developes a sudden reverence
for the testimony of _priests_ at the outset of his historical
inquiries, and finds that history begins with "priestly organizations;"
[47] that the royal records are "made and preserved by special castes of
priestly colleges and learned scribes, and that they are to a great
extent precise in date and accurate in fact." Of course this does not
include Christian priests, but the priests of barbarous cults of many
thousand years ago, who, as well as their royal masters, are at once
credited with all the delicacy of the accurate criticism which we boast
of in these days--how vainly, God knows. We are told one moment that
Herodotus "was credulous, and not very critical in distinguishing
between fact and fable," that his "sources of information were often not
much better than vague popular traditions, or the tales told by guides;"
[48] and