The Age of the Human Race (1929)

[192] The Catholic Anthropological Conference has issued in pamphlet form ''The Age of the Human Race in the Light of Geology" by Stephen Richarz [sic], S.V.D., Ph.D., which inspires new hope for the intellectual future of Catholicism in the United States. Catholic anthropological work, as inspired and directed by this Conference, provides at least one sound reason for believing that intellectual activity among American Catholics is not entirely stagnant.

Father Richarz, whose work in this field has received due recognition, presents us in this monograph with a splendid statement of the age of the human race. According to him it is an established fact that man witnessed the glaciation in northern and central Europe; second, that man was in Europe even before the last period of severe cold, and, finally, that man was in Europe during a rather genial climate preceding the last glaciation and witnessed this process of glaciation from its beginning to the complete disappearance of the ice.

What does this indicate with regard to the age of the human race? The author concludes that "there are many uncertainties which block any attempt to assign a definite figure for the age of mankind. On the other hand it would be unreasonable and unscientific to reject all figures as uncertain and unreliable. There are facts which are obvious and accepted unanimously by all geologists, and these facts warrant the conclusion that man was undoubtedly in Europe 30,000 years ago. Of this number of millenniums the first half is determined by exact methods, while the other half is based partly on an estimate of the recession of the ice where this recession can not yet be measured directly, partly on a conservative estimate of the time required for the advance of the ice front from northern to central Europe. Future development of these methods as well as new discoveries may raise this minimum figure considerably and place [193] on a more solid basis the theories of those who believe in a much higher age of mankind. However, it seems impossible to the author that the figure of 30,000 years will ever turn out to be too high as a reasonable estimate of the minimum age of the human race. In any case, the present essay shows that it is impossible to reconcile the well-known facts of human antiquity with such figures as 6,000 or 8,000 years.

It may be added in conclusion that no theological problem is involved. Theologians, even the more conservative, acknowledge full liberty to deviate from the figures of the older exegesis and declare that the problem of the age of mankind, like that of the age of the earth and of the universe, is one which has to be solved by secular science.

The presentation of the proof for these statements is made in an exceptionally pleasing and understandable form. We commend to all educated Catholics the careful reading of this excellent monograph. May Father Richarz be permitted to continue his scholarly work and thus help to bring the Catholic cause in the United States into repute among the educated and intellectual classes!

---

Source: Anonymous, "The Age of the Human Race," The Catholic Fortnightly Review 36, no. 10 (July 1929): 192–193.