Whatever psychologists and mythologists may have to say about libraries before the existence of the human race, there seems to be a surprising consensus of opinion that book collections must have started at latest very soon after man himself. A great number of such libraries are claimed by the ancients for the period between Adam and Noah, and if there were human beings before Adam, as many say, it is likely that there were at least memory libraries, for, as will be seen later in discussing memory libraries, these are almost inseparable from human nature. And further than this it appears from those very same sources, which so fluently allege and describe the library of Adam, that the books of Adam’s library represent such an advanced stage in the evolution of handwritten records as to necessitate a long library history previous to his time. These books included e.g., it is said, inscriptions cut in stone, and such inscriptions imply centuries if not tens of centuries of knot and other mnemonic forms of writing, preceding. Therefore if Adam’s library was as described in its literature, there must have been, for a long time before, Preadamite libraries!

Moreover if those writers on the Preadamites are correct who hold that Adam was the father of the Caucasian race only, (M’Causland. Adam p. 282), and that Mongols and negroes at least (M’Causland. Babel p. 277) were already existing when Adam was created, then of course all negro or Mongol libraries are Preadamite survivals! It is true that such writers represent culture, and by implication libraries, to have been introduced to the Mongols from the Adamite line and by Cain, but if premises are granted, the inference is complete, that primitive libraries of all kinds at least up to the time of phonetic records were Preadamite in origin and were shared by Mongol and negro races as well as by the Caucasian Adamites! For that matter some of these ancient, if not veracious sources assert that Adam was the inventor of the alphabet, which makes the matter even clearer, throwing even syllabic written libraries, not to mention ideographic libraries, back into the Preadamite period!

For those who care to follow up this fruitful but not profitable subject, some guide to the extensive literature on the Preadamites will be given farther along.