Much has from time to time been written as to the distinction between the Adamites and the pre-Adamites, although little has been done to identify the members of the two great divisions into which the human race has been thus divided. Those who accept the Deluge of Noah as a historical fact, stated however in terms too wide, may say generally that all the descendants of this patriarch are, as such, Adamites, while the pre-Adamites comprise the peoples of the primitive area inhabited by the dark races, supposed by some writers to be referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures under the term ish, “the sons of man,” as distinguished from the sons of Adam. Little value, however, can be attached to such a general statement as this. Supposing Noah to have been a second common father of the race, we are still ignorant as to what peoples are to be classed among his descendants. No doubt the Toldoth Beni Noah of Genesis throws considerable light on the question. According to that genealogical table the whole earth was divided after the Flood among the families of the three sons of Noah—Shem, Ham, and Japheth. It is not necessary here to identify the peoples described as the descendants of these patriarchs. It will suffice to say that Professor Rawlinson, who differs only in one or two108 particulars from other recent authorities, writes as to the distribution of those peoples: “Whereas the Japhetic and Hamitic races are geographically contiguous, the former spread over all the northern regions known to the genealogist—Greece, Thrace, Scythia, most of Asia Minor, Armenia, and Media; the latter over all the south and the south-west, North Africa, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, Southern and Southeastern Arabia, and Babylonia—so the Semitic races are located in what may be called one region, that region being the central one, lying intermediate between the Japhetic region upon the north and the Hamitic one upon the south.”

Supposing the Toldoth to give an exact statement of the descendants of the three sons of Noah, it by no means follows that the peoples there referred to are alone entitled to be classed as Adamites, and I propose, therefore, to see whether the latter can be identified by other evidence. Almost intuitively we turn, in the first place, to that region known as Chaldea, which has furnished in our own days material so important for the reconstruction of the annals of civilised man in the earliest historical period. Professor Rawlinson, indeed, at the Liverpool meeting of the British Association, held in 1870, sought to establish that the Garden of Eden of the Hebrew writers was none other than Babylonia; a hypothesis which certainly agrees with Sir Henry Rawlinson’s statement that Héa, the third member of the primitive Chaldean triad, may be connected with the Paradisaical traditions of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. This would point to Chaldea as the109 original home of the Adamites, unless, indeed, the traditions were derived from a still earlier centre, and it will be well to ascertain whether there is anything in the history of Babylon which directly connects its people with the Adamic stock.

If we were to accept with Chwolson the great antiquity of “The Book of Nabath?an Agriculture,” there would be no difficulty in assigning such a position to the Chaldeans. For this book not only expressly declares that they were the descendants of Adam, but in it Adam appears as the founder of agriculture in Babylon, acting the part of a civiliser, and hence named “The Father of Mankind.” This agrees well with the Old Testament account of Adam as the first cultivator of the ground. M. Renan, however, would seem to have conclusively established the late date of the so-called Nabath?an work, showing that it contains legends as to Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, “analogous to those which they have in the apocryphal writings of the Jews and Christians, and subsequently in those of the Mussulmans,” Adam being known to all the Moslem East as “The Father of Mankind.”

We must seek, therefore, for some more reliable record of early Chaldean history; and this we have in the stone monuments on which its annals were engraved. Sir Henry Rawlinson, on their authority, says of the Chaldeans of Babylonia that they were110 “a branch of the great Hamitic race of Akkad, which inhabited Babylonia from the earliest times. With this race originated the art of writing, the building of cities, the institution of a religious system, the cultivation of all science, and of astronomy in particular.” The race affinity of the Akkad is hardly yet settled, but some information as to this point may be gained from the name by which they were designated. This appears to be composed of two words Ak(k)-Ad, the latter of which may be identified with the first syllable of the name Adam. As to the word Ak, some light may probably be thrown on its meaning by reference to the Celtic languages. Baldwin, without seeing its full bearing, makes the remark that the Dravidians of Southern India use Mag, as the Berbers and Gaels use Mac (Mach), the former word denoting “kindred” in all the Teutonic languages. Now, it could be proved by many examples that the letter M, which is found at the beginning of certain words in various eastern languages, is often simply a prefix. This is especially the case in Hebrew and Arabic, and, therefore, probably in the more ancient languages with which they are allied. Such, at least, must be the case with the initial letter of the word mach, “son,” as in Erse the m is wanting, and in Welsh the related word, having the sense of “a root or stem, lineage,” is also simply ach. Thus Ak(k)-Ad may well be “the sons or lineage of Ad;” as Mac-Adam in Gaelic is a son of Adam. That the first syllable of this word had the signification here assigned to it is rendered extremely probable by another circumstance. It is well known that the Welsh equivalent for Mach, in the sense of “son,” is Ap; and so also we find that in Hebrew “son” is rendered by ben (the Assyrian ban), while in Arabic it is ibn. In these words the b is the root sound, and if son was expressed by ak in111 the old Akkad tongue, this would bear the same relation to the Semitic languages as the Welsh does to the Gaelic and Erse—ak and ben in the one class answering to ach and ap in the other. Nor is this view without positive support. The Hebrew has a word ach which expresses, not only the sense of “a brother,” but also “one of the same kindred.” In Assyrian uk means a “people,” while ak signifies a “Creator;” these words being connected with the old Egyptian uk, and also ahi, “to live.”

Nor is the idea that the Chaldean Akkad were literally “the sons of Ad” without historical basis. According to Berosus, the first Babylonian dynasty was Median. What people were referred to by this name is still undecided. Professor Rawlinson supposes that they were really the same as the so-called Aryan Medes of later history, while Sir Henry Rawlinson, although treating the later Medes as Aryan, yet considers those of Bersosus to have belonged to a Turanian, or at least a mixed Scytho-Aryan, stock. Elsewhere Professor Rawlinson seems inclined to identify the Chaldean Akkad with these Medes, as a Turanian people who at a very early date conquered the Babylonian Kushites and mixed with them. This is, in fact, the conclusion which appears to be required by other considerations. The name by which the Medes are first noticed on the Assyrian monuments is Mad. But if the initial labial is removed, this name is reduced to the more simple form Ad; and, supposing the explanation given of the primitive name of the Chaldean race to be correct, the (M)ad who preceded them would really be the parent stock from which the112 Akkad, or Chaldeans, were derived. Confirmation of this notion may be supplied from another source. Among their Aryan neighbours the later Medes had the distinctive title of Már. This, Sir Henry Rawlinson supposes to have given rise, “not only to the Persian traditions of Zohák and his snakes, but to the Armenian traditions also of the dragon dynasty of Media, the word Már having in Persian the signification of a snake.” But this must have been through ignorance of the real origin of the title, which had reference rather to the lion than to the snake. The Arab historian, Massoudi, in accounting for the application to the city of Babylon of the name of Iran-Sheher, observes that, “according to some, the true orthography should be Arian-Sheher,” which signifies in Nabath?an, “the city of Lions,” and that “this name of Lion designated the kings of Assyria, who bore the general title of Nimrud.” Sir Henry Rawlinson thinks that the title Már is Scythic, and, if so, there can be little doubt of its signification. The primitive meaning of Ar was “fire,” from which the lion, as the symbol of the Sun-god was called ari, the Sun-god himself having a name Ra. Strictly, therefore, Már would denote “fire-worshippers,” a title which, as is well-known, was especially applicable to the ancient Medes. The Aryans generally appear to have been Sun-or Fire-worshippers, and probably they received their name from this fact. This would seem to be much more probable than the ordinary derivation of the name Aryan from the root ar, “to plough;” and it would include the sense of “noble” preferred by Mr. Peile,113 “children of the Sun” being usually a special title of the priestly or royal caste.

Connected with this question is that of the origin of the name of the Greek god Ares (the Latin Mars). Among other grounds for inferring the Asiatic origin of this deity is his connection with Herakles. The Latin myth of Hercules and Cacus would seem, moreover, to require the identification of the former with Mars. Such would appear to be the case also in Chaldean mythology. The Babylonian Mars was called Nergal, which is probably the same name as “Hercules,” and Sir Henry Rawlinson suggests that the only distinction to be made between that deity and Nin, or Hercules, as gods of war and hunting, is that the former is more addicted to the chase of animals and the latter to that of mankind. That Hercules, or Herakles, was of Ph?nician or Assyrian origin has been fully established by the learned researches of M. Raoul-Rochette, who has shown, moreover, that the proper name of that deity was Sandan or Adanos (Adan), a name which not only reminds us of Aduni, supposed by Professor Rawlinson to be a primeval Chaldean deity, but also recalls that of the Median Ad, and even of the Hebrew Adam.

A remark made by Lajard strongly confirms the idea that the Latin war-god was derived from a similar source. This learned French writer accounts for the rapidity with which Mazd?ism, better known as the worship of Mithra, spread among the Romans, by supposing that it was in some way connected with their national worship. Probably a key to this connection may be found in the curious figures of Mithra which114 appear to have been peculiar to the Roman phase of Mazd?ism. These figures, which are encircled by a serpent, unite to the human body and limbs, the head of the lion, and they might well be taken to represent Mars himself, since the title Már, which was distinctive of the Medes, not only conveyed the idea of a serpent, but was also, and more intimately, associated with the lion symbol of the Sun-god.

If the alliance thus sought to be established, through the title Már, between the Medes or Mad, and the other peoples of the so-called Aryan stock be correct, we may expect to find traces among some, at least, of these peoples of the primeval Ad. Nor will such expectation be disappointed. The Parsis of Bombay have a book called the “Desatir,” the first part of which is entitled “the Book of the Great Abad,” who is declared to have been the first ancestor of mankind. The authenticity of this book has been denied, as Mr. Baldwin thinks, however, on insufficient grounds. It is certainly strange, on the assumption of its being apocryphal, that such a name as Abad should have been given to the mythical head of the race. The meaning of the name is evidently “Father Ad” and there is nothing improbable in the Persians preserving a tradition of the mythical ancestor, whose memory was retained in the national name of the Medes, a people with whom they were so closely connected. It simply confirms the conclusion before arrived at, that they also must be classed among the Adamites.

The Hindus themselves would seem not to be without a remembrance of the mythical ancestor of the Adamic stock. The Puranas, which, notwithstanding115 their modern form, doubtless retain many old legends, refers to the reign of King It or Ait, as an avatar of Mahadeva (Siva), who is a form of Saturn. Assuming that the information given to Wilford as to the reign of this king in Egypt ought to be rejected; yet, as Aetus is mentioned by Greek writers as a Hindu, we must suppose such information to have been founded on actual statements contained in the Puranas. These certainly refer to the Yáduvas, descendants of Yadu, supposed emigrants to Abyssinia, whose character, as described in the Puranas, agrees well, says Wilford, with that ascribed “by the ancients to the genuine Ethiopians, who are said by Stephanus of Byzantium, by Eusebius, by Philostratus, by Eustathius, and others, to have come originally from India under the guidance of Aetus or Yátu,” whom they believed to be the same as King Ait.

Nor do the Celtic peoples appear to be without a traditional remembrance of the mythical ancestor. The leading Celtic people of Gaul, in the time of C?sar, were the ?din, and Davies thought that their name was derived from Aedd the Great, whom he finds referred to in the Welsh triads, and whom he identifies with Aides or Dis. C?sar, indeed, says that the god Dis was the mythical ancestor of the Gauls. The position occupied by this deity in the traditions of the Celtic race is very remarkable, when we consider that a divine person bearing the same name was known, not only to the Greeks, but apparently also to the Babylonians. Sir Henry Rawlinson points out that Dis should be one of the names of Anu, the first member of the leading Chaldean triad, and the116 deity who answered to Hades or Pluto. Warka or Urka, the great necropolis of Babylon, was especially dedicated to Anu, and Sir Henry Rawlinson remarks on this: “Can the coincidence then be merely accidental between Dis, the Lord of Urka, the City of the Dead, and Dis, the King of Orcus or Hades?” Most certainly not, as it is only one of many circumstances which prove the close connection of the Greeks and other Aryan peoples with the ancient Babylonians. The original character of Dis, “Lord of the Dead,” was probably the same as that of the Gallic Dis, i.e., the mythical ancestor of the race. A similar change of character has been undergone by the Hindu Yama.

It is very probable that in the divine ancestor Dis, as in the mythical King It of the Hindus, we have reference to the primeval Ad.227 A common relationship as Adamites may be shown, as well by association with the Medes, through their title Már, as by preservation of a tradition of the common ancestor.

The result, so far, is that not only the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, and probably the Hindus, but also the Celtic peoples, have been connected with the Medes or Mad, and through them with the Akkad. But among the peoples supposed to be still more nearly allied to the Chaldeans, we may expect to find references to the mythical ancestor of the Adamic division of mankind. According to old tradition, indeed, Ad himself was the primeval father of the117 original Arab stock. Moreover, the dialect of Mahrah, where pure Arab blood is supposed still to exist, is called the language of Ad. It can hardly be doubted that a reference to the same mythical personage is also contained in the name of the great deity of the Syrians, Adad, “King of Kings,” whose title implies the idea of “fatherhood.” Nor are there wanting traces of the primeval Ad among the Egyptians. Mr. William Osburn states that the name of the local god of On or Heliopolis “is written on the monuments with the characters representing the sound a, t, m.” This God was associated with the setting sun, and he was placed with the gods of the other cities of the Delta, a distinction he received, says Osburn, “for the triple reason, that he was the local god of the capital city, that he was the father of mankind, and that he was the ruler and guide of the sun, the common dispenser of earthly blessings to all men.” Atum thus becomes identified with the Hebrew Adam, and although the description given by Osburn of the Egyptian deity may require some qualification, yet that identification is strengthened rather than weakened by other considerations. Bunsen says that the office of Atum in the lower world is that of a judge, and he supposes from this that at one time he may have been a Dispater. He does, indeed, bear much the same relation to man as Dis himself. In the Ritual of the Dead, the souls call him father, and he addresses them as children. Sir Gardner Wilkinson says that Atum, or Atmoo, is always figured with a human head and painted of a red colour. This seems to confirm the idea derived from his name, that this118 deity was related to the Hebrew Adam, with whom the idea of ruddiness was undoubtedly associated. The human form of the Egyptian Atum shows, moreover, that he was considered as peculiarly connected with man.

It has now been shown that not only are the people mentioned in the Toldoth Beni Noah rightly classed as descendants of the mythical Ad, but that the Asiatic Aryans, with the allied peoples of Europe to the furthest limits of the Celtic area, may also well be thus described. The ancient Mad belonged, however, to the great Scythic stock, and hence all the Turanian peoples, including the Chinese, may doubtless be classed among the Adamites. There is some ground, therefore, for asserting that the Adamites include all the so-called Turanian and Aryan peoples of Asia and Europe, with the Hamitic and Semitic peoples of Western Asia and Northern Africa—in fact, the yellow, the red, and the white races, as distinguished from the darker peoples of the tropics. But even these limits may perhaps be extended. One of the solar heroes of the Volsung Tale is Atli, who becomes the second husband of Gudrun, the widow of Sigurd, Sigurd himself being the slayer of the dragon Fafnir, who symbolises the darkness or cold of a northern winter—the Vritra of Hindu mythology. This dragon enemy of Indra was also called Ahi, the strangling snake, who appears again as Atri, and Mr. Cox supposes that the name Atri may be the same as the Atli of the Volsung Tale. Atli, who in the Nibelung song is called Etzel, overpowers the chieftains of Niflheim, who refused to give up the golden treasures119 which Sigurd had won from the dragon, and he throws them into a pit full of snakes.

The connection of the Teutonic hero with the serpent is remarkable; for in the Mexican mythology we meet with a divinity having almost the same name, and associated with the same animal. Humboldt tells us that the Great Spirit of the Toltecks was called Teotl; and Hardwicke says that Teotl was the only God of Central America. If so, however, he was a serpent deity, for the temples of Yucatan were undoubtedly dedicated to a deity of that nature. It is not improbable, however, that Teotl was really a generic term, agreeing in this respect, as curiously enough in its form, with the Ph?nician Taaut (Thoth).

The God to whom the temples of Yucatan were really dedicated appears to be Quetzalcoatl, by some writers called the feathered serpent, a title belonging rather to his serpent-father Tonacatlcoatl. This Quetzalcoatl was the mysterious stranger who, according to tradition, founded the civilisation of Mexico, agreeing thus in his character of a god of wisdom with the Egyptian Thoth; reminding us of the resemblance of the name of this deity to that of the Toltecan Teotl. But the first part of the name of the Mexican Quetzalcoatl no less resembles that borne by the Teutonic deity, Etzel. Co-atl signifies the “serpent,” while quetzal would seem to have reference to the male principle; and thus the idea expressed in the name of the Mexican god is the male principle represented as a serpent. Quetzalcoatl, moreover, is said to be an incarnation of Tonacatlcoatl, who is the male-serpent, his wife being called Cihua-coatl, meaning, literally,120 the “woman of the serpent,” or “female serpent.” In the identification, then, of Atli or Etzel, who consigns his enemies to the pit of serpents, with the great serpent Ahi himself, we have a ground of identification of the Teutonic deity with the Mexican serpent-god Quetzalcoatl. This view loses none of its probability if the latter is, as Mr. Squire asserts, an incarnation of the serpent-sun, or rather a serpent incarnation of the sun-god, since Ahi himself is a solar deity. In the religious symbols used by the Mexicans, we have another point of contact with the Asiatic deities. The sacred Tau of antiquity has its counterpart on the Mexican monuments. The Mexican symbol perfectly represents the cross form of the Tau, but it is composed of two serpents entwined, somewhat as in the caduceus of Mercury. That the Tau itself had such an origin we can well believe, seeing that the name of the letter Tet (θετα) of the Ph?nician alphabet specially associated with Thoth, of whom the Tau is a symbol, is that of the God himself, as well as meaning “serpent.”

If the comparison thus made between the Mexican and Teutonic mythologies is correct, the further analogies pointed out by M. Brasseur de Bourbourg may be well founded. Thus the Mexican Votan or Odon, supposed to be the same as Quetzalcoatl, may be in reality none other than the Scandinavian Odin, Woden, or Wuotan, who, if not a sun-god, was the sky-god, whose eye was the sun (Grimm’s “Teutonic Mythology,” translated by Stallybrass, p. 703). The snake is intimately associated with Odin in Norse mythology (Grimm, p. 685) as it is with Votan, and121 both these personages have been identified with the Indian Buddha god.228

Nor is there wanting confirmative evidence of such an affinity between the peoples of the Old and the New Worlds as that supposed. Mr. Tylor, in his work on “Primitive Culture,” points out that the Roman game of bucca-bucca, referred to in a passage of Petronius, is still retained as the old nursery game, “Buck, buck, how many horns do I hold up?” The meaning of this formula is not given, but, from the fact that the witch’s devil of the middle ages was represented as a buck or goat, we can hardly doubt that the buck or bucca of the game referred to the evil spirit. The devil was, indeed, called by the Cornish Celts bucka (Welsh bwg), a hobgoblin, a name which is evidently connected with the Russian buka, a sprite, and with the Bog of Slavonic and other allied languages. We have, no doubt, the same word in the name of the Finnic sky-god Ukko. Of this again we seem to have traces, not only in the Kalmuck Búrkhan and the Mantchoo Ab-ka, but also in the Hottentot Teqoa (Kafir, Tixo), the Supreme God; and in the word yakko, demon, the name given to the aborigines of Ceylon by their Hindu conquerors. But the root of this word is met with again among the122 American tribes. The Hurons believe the sky to be an oki, or demon, this name being also that by which the natives of Virginia knew their chief god. The same word appears to enter into the name of the Algonquin god of the North Wind, Kabibon-okka, as also of the Muyscan Moon goddess, Huyth-aca. Whether the Algonquin Great Spirit, Kitchi-Manitu, has preserved the same word, is questionable; but it is noticeable that in the mythology of Kamtschatka the first man is called Haetsh, and he is the son of Kutka, the Creator, whose name, by the allowable change of t for k, becomes almost the same as the Finnic Ukko. The word oki may, moreover, be found, with merely the vowel change, among the Islanders of the Pacific. Thus the Polynesian fire-god is Mahu-ika, the last syllable of which is doubtless connected with akua, meaning, like the American oki, spirit, or demon. The same root is met with again in Tiki, the Rarotongan form of Maui, the divine ancestor of the New Zealanders, and the Tii of the Society Islands; also in Akea, the name of the mythical first king of Hawaii. Tiki is probably only another form of Ta-ata, with the change of k for t (as in akua for atua); and it is remarkable that this name of the Polynesian First Man is really that of the mythical ancestor of the Adamites, reversed, however, and with the addition of the word ata (aka), spirit, which we have shown to be connected with the name for God among so many independent races. Mr. Fornander identifies the Polynesian word aitu or iku, spirit, with the name of the great “Kushite” king It or Ait, and he states that the idea of royalty or sovereignty attached to that word is observed in old123 Hawaiian tradition.—“The Polynesian Race,” 1878, vol. i., pp. 44, 54.

These mythological coincidences are, indeed, so strongly supported by similarity of customs and linguistic affinities, that there can be no difficulty in classing the Mexicans and kindred American peoples, and even the lighter Polynesians, with the Adamites. This being so, a still broader generalisation than any yet attempted may be made as to the peoples to be included in the Adamic division of the human race. The simplest classification of mankind, according to cranial conformation, is that of Retzius into dolichocephali, or long heads, and brachycephali, or short heads. The Mexicans, and other peoples of the western part of the American Continent, belong to the latter category, as do also the inhabitants of the greater part of the area of Asia and Europe. In China, and in the southern part of Asia as well as of Europe, the various peoples are chiefly long-headed, and this is the case with the Hamitic population of Northern Africa. The latter are, however, certainly much mixed with the native African element, which is purely dolichocephalic, exhibiting traces of its prognathism; and it is far from improbable that originally they were brachycephalic, like the allied peoples of Western Asia. Such also may have been the case with the Chinese and the lighter Polynesians, who are now nearly dolichocephalic.229 Throughout all the regions where these peoples are found there would appear to have been an indigenous long-headed stock,124 which has more or less nearly absorbed the brachycephalic element, which was introduced long ages ago from the vast regions of Central Asia, and which, for want of a better term, may be called Scythic. Subject to this qualification, it may probably be said that Adamic and short-headed are synonymous terms, and that among the descendants of Father Ad may, therefore, be classed all the peoples who are embraced in the great brachycephalic division of mankind, or who would have belonged to it, if they had not been physically modified by contact with peoples of the more primitive dolichocephalic area.

How far the Adamites have trespassed on this area it is difficult to determine. That they have become mixed with the peoples of the African Continent to a much larger extent than is usually supposed may be believed. The Hottentots, at its extremest limit, are no doubt a residual deposit of such intermixture; while the great family to which the Kafirs belong furnish evidence of it in various particulars. The Adamites appear also to have spread throughout the archipelagos of the Pacific, furnishing an explanation of the many customs and myths in which the Polynesian Islanders agree with Asiatic peoples. Nor are the Adamites much less widely spread throughout the American Continent. Apart from what Professor Busk affirms, that a broad type of head is to be met with on the coast all round South America, peoples allied to those of Mexico and Central America would seem to have occupied many of the West Indian Islands, and to have penetrated through the central portion of North America to the Great Lakes. Wherever the125 Adamites have come into contact with the long-headed pre-Adamitic stock, they have either made these to disappear, or, while having their physical structure somewhat modified by intermixture, they have established a supremacy due to their greater vigour and mental energy. It is difficult, indeed, to say where the descendants of Ad are not now to be met with, or where the pre-Adamite is to be found uninfluenced by contact with them.

In conclusion, it will be well to endeavour to ascertain the origin of the tradition as to Adam or father Ad. According to usually received teaching, Adam and Eve were the actual first parents of the human race, or, at all events, of the Adamic portion of it. Whether or not this idea is correct need not be further considered here, beyond stating that if, as Bunsen suggests, the existence of other antediluvian patriarchs be mythical, so also must be that of Adam from whom they are said to have sprung.

The Semitic word ADaM conveys several ideas. In the form Adamah or Adami it has reference to the earth or soil, but its primary sense was either “red” or “man.” Probably a double meaning was conveyed in the name of the Egyptian god Atum, whose representation was that of a red man. It must be noted, however, that the traditional ancestor is usually styled, not Adam but simply Ad; and this primitive root may have had some other signification, analogous perhaps to that of Eve (Hhavváh), “the mother of all living.” This word, which denotes “life,” is from hhayáh, to live, to give life—the allied word in Arabic being haywān, and the Arabic name for Eve becoming126 hawwa. Now, in the Celtic dialects ad forms the root of words denoting vegetable vitality. In Welsh, moreover, tad is a father; the base, ta, denoting, among allied senses, “a supreme one,” reminding us of the Chinese ta, great; and connected with it being tras, kindred, affinity. Turning, however, to Eastern languages, we find that the old Egyptian had a word ti, with a sense analogous to that of the Welsh ta, and also a verb ta, to give, which is found in Hebrew, as ’athah, to come, and in Arabic as ata, to give, or to bring forth. It is evident that the primitive root, consisting of the dental t or d, preceded or followed by a vowel sound, had associated with it the idea of activity, and probably of paternity. In the old Akkad speech, indeed, ad itself signifies a “father,” and we are justified, therefore, in supposing that when this word was used as the name of the mythical common ancestor, it had a sense analogous to that which “Eve” expressed, i.e., “the father of life, or of all living.” In Adam and Eve, therefore, we may have a reference to the male and female principles which, in the philosophy of the ancients, as in that of the Chinese and some other Eastern peoples, pervade all nature, and originate all things, applied particularly, however, to the human race. But Adam was not the name given at first to this mystical father of the race. The Egyptian Atum was originally a cosmogonic deity. Bunsen states that the name of this god may be resolved into At-Mu, meaning “Creator of the mother or night.” The sense of this, however, is not very apparent, and it may be suggested that the term Adam (in Egyptian Atum) was formed by the combination of the primitive akkad127 words Ad, father, and Dam, mother. It would thus originally express a dual idea, agreeably to the statement in Gen. v. 2, that male and female were called “Adam.” This agrees perfectly with the Persian tradition which made the first human being androgynous. When the dual idea expressed in the name was forgotten, Adam became the Great Father, the Great Mother receiving the name of Eve (Hhavváh), i.e., living or life, although Adam in the generic sense of “Mankind,” denoted both male and female.

Note.—The Turanian or rather Altaic affinity of the Akkad, referred to at page 109 above, appears to have been established by M. Lenormant, who states that their name means “Mountaineers,” from Akkad, a mountain. It is possible, however, that the word may have had a more primitive signification. As the name of a country and not of a people, Akkad did not come into use until the Assyrian epoch, “When the Accadian had become a dead language, and the tradition of the real meaning of the word was consequently quite lost.” (Chaldean Magic and Sorcery, p. 404.) As to the aboriginal Arab people referred to at page 117, it may be mentioned that M. Lenormant (Hist. Anc. de l’Orient, 9th Ed. I. t. prem. p. 313), points out that the name, Adah, of the mother of the two sons of Lameckh, who were chiefs of pastoral races, is only the feminine form of that of the people of Ad.