Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/364

 4 A Criticism of Milkmitl ffo&s Ex*m*w&

years; this would give **t#y 115 per cent, increase for a ceatury. However, that the increase has not been so great an the past we are certain. This is easily demonstrated, for i we should reckon backward at this ratio of increase we would get back to the first pair (Adam and Eve) in about three thousand years, and we have Scriptural grounds for believing that it is fully six thousand years since the creation of our first parents*

We believe that every careful, thoughtful calculator, who with us will take Bible history and secular history, will come to close agreement with our conclusions on this subject.

Our figures for the whole number of people who have ever been born on this earth are 28,441,126,838 to date- including the present population. It is our conviction that these figures are probably double the actual number, bufc we desire to make them so generous that even opponents can find no fault with them. We arrive at these figures as follows: (See also "ANOTHER CALCULATION/* p. 13.) ^

During the first sixteen hundred and fifty-six years, down to the fiood, the Scriptures show us that humanity lived longer and reached development more slowly than now, many of the children not being born until the parents were more than a htindred years old. Thus Seth, the son of Adam, was one hundred and five years old when Enos, his son, was born; Enos was ninety years old at the birth of his first son, Cainan; Caaaan was seventy years old when he begat Mahalaleel; the latter was sixty-five when he begat Jared, who was one hundred and sixty-two when he begat Enoch, The latter when sixty-five begat Methuselah, who when one hundred and eighty-seven begat Lamech, the father of Noah. We are inclined to believe that the whole population in that time may not have exceeded one hundred thousand, but to be liberal we have placed it in the fore- going estimate at one million.

After the fiood humanity began again with eight persons, and for a time evidently the increase in population was much more rapid than before the flood. In our liberal estimate we reckon the population to have multiplied five

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