Identifier: ridpathshistoryo01ridp (find matches)
Title: Ridpath's history of the world; being an account of the ethnic origin, primitive estate, early migrations, social conditions and present promise of the principal families of men ..
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
Subjects: World history Ethnology
Publisher: New York, Merrill & Baker
Contributing Library: Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston University

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the belief that the ap-pearance of man on the planet wouldoccur at the earliest practicable moment(so to speak), and that mankind wouldcontinue to nourish to the latest practi-cable date. It is one of the novel con- 82 GREAT RACES OF MANKIND. tradictions in the philosophy of a certainschool of thinkers that they would haveus believe that the earth, fitted up as itwere for the dwelling place of man, laygreen and virgin, waiting for his ap-pearance through eons of useless time—all this for no better reason than to sat-isfy the preconceptions of some impossi-ble system of chronology. Such short-sighted views of nature consistent with the astronomical andgeological preparation of the globe.Reason and fact alike require us to ac-cept as early a date for the appearanceof man as the design of the world andits conditions of habitability will admit.The results of reason must be acceptedin a world governed by law. That thedate of mans appearance was coinci-dent, or nearly coincident, with the
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.ANDSCAPE OF THE LOWER OOLITE (BEFORE THE AGE OF MAN).—Drawn by Riou. and of man we may at once dismiss asbelonging to the ignorance and blindnessRight reason de- of a former age. WhiledaTeforappS- the demands of right reason anceofman. ft0 not call for a limitless extension of man-life into the past, andwhile such a view is contradicted by sci-entific data which may not be doubted,a rational concept of the human race inrelation with the planetary life uponwhich it is maintained does call for aswide and far-reaching an arena as is astronomical changes in the characterof the earths orbit heretofore described,can not well be doubted by any onewhose mind has been freed from nar-row preconceptions on the subject.That our race career, measuring back-ward through the brief historical andtraditional periods of our ethnic life, hasextended far enough into the past tocover a considerable part of the planetlife with which it is associated, is a con-clusion warranted by every condition of TIME

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