In the Bible narrative continuous history begins, at the earliest, not before the time of Abraham. In the earlier chapters of Genesis we find only scattered notices of individuals who dwelt in one particular corner of the world, nothing to indicate the general distribution of races, or the continuous lapse of time. It is, moreover, a fact that, owing partly to the associations of childhood, we are apt, by a too literal interpretation, to rob the narrative of some part of its historical value. Here, proper names, which we might be inclined to take for the names of single individuals, often stand for whole races, and sometimes for the countries which gave their names to the people dwelling in them. ‘Son of,’ too, must not be taken in its most literal meaning, but in the wider, and in old languages the perfectly natural, sense of ‘descended from.’ When nations kept the idea of a common ancestor before their minds, in a way with which we of the present day are quite unfamiliar, it was very customary to describe any one person of that people as the ‘son of’ the common ancestor. Thus a Greek who wished to bring before his hearers the common nationality of the Greek people--the Hellenes--would speak of them as being the sons of Hellen, of the Æolians or Ionians as sons of Æolus or Ion. In another way, again, an Athenian or Theban might speak of his fellow-citizens as sons of Athens or of Thebes. Such language among any ancient people is not poetical or hyperbolical language, but the usual speech of every day. It is in a similar fashion that in the Bible narrative, centuries are passed rapidly over. And if the remains of the stone ages lift a little the veil which hides man’s earliest doings upon earth, it must be confessed that the light which these can shed is but slight and partial. We catch sight of a portion of the human race making their rude implements of stone and bone, living in caves as hunters and fishers, without domestic animals and without agriculture, but not without faculties which raise them far above the level of the beasts by which they are surrounded. Yet of these early men we may say we know not whence they come or whither they go. We cannot tell whether the picture which we are able to form of man of the earliest time--of the first stone age--is a general or a partial picture; whether it represents the majority of his fellow-creatures, or only a particular race strayed from the first home of man. [Sidenote: Black, yellow, red, and white races.]