ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 285 



lieve that his mind, and even some of his physical 

 characteristics, may be due to the action of other forces 

 than have acted in the case of the lower animals. 



We need hardly be surprised, under these circum- 

 stances, if there has been a tendency among men of 

 science to pass from one extreme to the other ; from a 

 profession (so few years ago) of total ignorance as to the 

 mode of origin of all living things, to a claim to almost 

 complete knowledge of the whole progress of the uni- 

 verse, from the first speck of living protoplasm up to 

 the highest development of the human intellect. Yet 

 this is really what we have seen in the last sixteen 

 years. Formerly difficulties were exaggerated, and it 

 was asserted that we had not sufficient knowledge to 

 venture on any generalizations on the subject. Now 

 difficulties are set aside, and it is held that our theories 

 are so well established and so far-reaching, that they 

 explain and comprehend all nature. It is not long ago 

 (as I have already reminded you) since facts were con- 

 temptuously ignored, because they favoured our now 

 popular views ; at the present day it seems to me that 

 facts which oppose them hardly receive due consideration. 

 And as opposition is the best incentive to progress, and 

 it is not well even for the best theories to have it all 

 their own way, I propose to direct your attention to a 

 few such facts, and to the conclusions that seem fairly 

 deducible from them. 



Indications of Man's Extreme Antiquity. It is a 

 curious circumstance that, notwithstanding the attention 

 that has been directed to the subject in every part of the 

 world, and the numerous excavations connected with 

 railways and mines which have offered such facilities 



