a general name for all mankind who lived before the flood, thus including the whole of the human race from Adam to Noah and his family.

As Moses has not set down the particular time of any transaction before the flood, except only the years of the fathers' ages in which the several descendants of Adam in the line of Seth were begotten, and the length of their several lives, it has been the business of chronologers to endeavour to fix the years of the lives and deaths of those patriarchs, and the distance of time from the Creation to the Deluge. In this there could be little difficulty were there no varieties in the several copies we now have of Moses's writings; which are, the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Greek version of the Septuagint; but as these differ very considerably from one another, learned men have been much divided in opinion concerning the chronology of the first ages of the world.

That the reader may the better judge of the variations in the three copies in this period, they are exhibited in the following table, with the addition of those of Josephus as corrected by Dr Wells and Mr Whiston.

**A Table of the Years of the Antediluvian Patriarchs.**

| Their Ages at their Sons' Birth | Years they Lived after their Sons' Birth | Length of their Lives | |-------------------------------|------------------------------------------|----------------------| | Adam | 130 130 230 130 | 800 800 800 700 | | Seth | 105 105 205 105 | 807 807 707 | | Enos | 90 90 190 90 | 815 815 715 | | Cainall | 70 70 170 70 | 840 840 740 | | Mahalalel | 65 65 165 65 | 830 830 730 | | Jared | 62 62 162 62 | 800 785 800 | | Enoch | 65 65 165 65 | 300 300 200 | | Methuselah | 67 67 157 67 | 782 653 862 | | Lamech | 63 63 188 63 | 653 600 563 | | Noah was aged at the Flood | 600 600 600 600 | 777 633 733 | | To the Flood | 1656 1367 2212 1556 | |

All our authentic information respecting this long and interesting period is contained in 49 verses of Genesis (iv. 16, to vi. 8), more than half of which are occupied with a list of names and ages, invaluable for chronology, but conveying no particulars regarding the primeval state of man. Some additional information, though less direct, may be safely deduced from the history of Noah and the first men after the Deluge; for it is very evident that society did not begin afresh after that event; but that, through Noah and his sons, the new families of men were in a condition to inherit, and did inherit, such sciences and arts as existed before the Flood. This enables us to understand how settled and civilised communities were established, and large and magnificent works undertaken, within a few centuries of the Deluge.

The human race probably had before the Deluge whatever knowledge or civilisation their agricultural and pastoral pursuits required. It is remarkable that of the strictly savage or hunting condition of life there is not the slightest trace before the Deluge. After that event, Nimrod, although a hunter (Gen. x. 9), was not a savage, and did not belong to hunting tribes of men. In fact, savagism is not discoverable before the confusion of tongues, and was in all likelihood a degeneracy from a state of cultivation eventually produced in particular communities by that great social convulsion. That a degree of cultivation was the primitive condition of man, from which savagism in particular quarters was a degeneracy, and that he has not, as too generally has been supposed, worked himself up from an original savage state to his present position, has at least been powerfully argued by Dr Philip Lindsay, and is strongly corroborated by the conclusions of modern ethnographical research; from which we learn that, while it is easy for men to degenerate into savages, no example has been found of savages rising into civilisation but by an impulse from without, administered by a more civilised people; and that, even with such impulse, the vis inertiae of established habits is with difficulty overcome.

All that was peculiar in the circumstances of the antediluvian period was eminently favourable to civilisation. "The longevity of the earlier seventeen or twenty centuries of human existence is a theme containing many problems. It may be here referred to for the purpose of indicating the advantages which must necessarily have therefrom accrued to the mechanical arts."

By reason of their length of life, the antediluvians had also more encouragement in protracted undertakings, and stronger inducements to the erection of superior, more costly, more durable, and more capacious edifices and monuments, public and private, than exist at present.

But probably the greatest advantage enjoyed by the antediluvians, and which must have been in the highest degree favourable to their advancement in the arts of life, was the uniformity of language. Nothing could have tended more powerfully to maintain, equalise, and promote whatever advantages were enjoyed, and to prevent any portion of the human race from degenerating into savage life.

The opinion that the old world was acquainted with astronomy, is chiefly founded on the ages of Seth and his descendants being particularly set down (Gen. v. 6, sqq.), and the precise year, month, and day being stated in which Noah and his family, &c., entered the ark, and made their egress from it (Gen. vii. 11; viii. 13).

That the antediluvians were acquainted with music is certain; for it is expressly said that Jubal (while Adam was still alive) became 'the father of those who handle the כִּנְעָנִים kinnur and the נְגַבְתָא nayab.' The kinnur, was evidently a stringed instrument resembling a lyre; and the nayab was without doubt the pandean pipe, composed of reeds of different lengths joined together.

With regard to architecture, it is a singular and important fact that Cain, when he was driven from his first abode, built a city in the land to which he went, and called it Enoch, after his son. This shows that the descendants of Adam lived in houses and towns from the first, and consequently affords another confirmation of the argument for the original cultivation of the human family.

That they were acquainted with agriculture, is obvious from a reference to the case of Noah, who, immediately after the Flood, became a husbandman, and planted a vineyard. He also knew the method of fermenting the juice of the grape; for It is said that he drank of the wine, which produced inebriation (Gen. ix. 20, 21). This knowledge he doubtless obtained from his progenitors anterior to the destruction of the old world.

It is impossible to speak with any decision respecting the form or forms of government which prevailed before the Deluge. The slight intimations to be found on the subject seem to favour the notion that the particular governments were patriarchal, subject to a general theocratical control—God himself manifestly interfering to uphold the good and check the wicked. The right of property was recognised, for Abel and Jabal possessed flocks, and Cain built a city. As ordinances of religion sacrifices certainly existed (Gen. iv. 4), and some think that the sabbath was observed; while some interpret the words, "Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord" (Gen. iv. 26), to signify that public worship then began to be practised.

Marriage, and all the relations springing from it, existed from the beginning (Gen. ii. 23-25); and although polygamy was known among the antediluvians (Gen. iv. 19), it was most probably unlawful; for it must have been obvious that, if more than one wife had been necessary for a man, the Lord would not have confined the first man to one woman. The marriage of the sons of Seth with the daughters of Cain appears to have been prohibited, since the consequence of it was that universal depravity in the family of Seth so forcibly expressed in this short passage, "All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth" (Gen. vii. 11).—Critica Biblica, iv. 14-20; Faber's Horae Mosaicae; P. Lindley, D.D., On the Primitive State of Mankind, in Am. Bib. Repos. iv. 277-298; vi. 1-27. See also Anc. Univ. Hist. i. 142-201.—Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, by Kitto.