290 TROPICAL NATURE, AND OTHER ESSAYS. 



The conclusion which I think we must arrive at is, 

 that if man has been developed from a common ancestor 

 with all existing apes, and by no other agencies than 

 such as have affected their development, then he must 

 have existed, in something approaching his present form, 

 during the tertiary period and not merely existed, but 

 predominated in numbers, wherever suitable conditions 

 prevailed. If then, continued researches in all parts of 

 Europe and Asia fail to bring to light any proofs of his 

 presence, it will be at least a presumption that he came 

 into existence at a much later date, and by a much more 

 rapid process of development. In that case it will be a 

 fair argument that, just as he is in his mental and moral 

 nature, his capacities and aspirations, so infinitely raised 

 above the brutes, so his origin is due, in part, to distinct 

 and higher agencies than such as have affected their 

 development. 



Antiquity of Intellectual Man. There is yet another 

 line of inquiry bearing upon this subject to which I 

 wish to call your attention. It is a somewhat curious 

 fact that, while all modern writers admit the great 

 antiquity of man, most of them maintain the very 

 recent development of his intellect, and will hardly 

 contemplate the possibility of men equal in mental 

 capacity to ourselves having existed in prehistoric times. 

 This question is generally assumed to be settled by such 

 relics as have been preserved of the manufactures of the 

 older races, showing a lower and lower state of the arts ; 

 by the successive disappearance in early times of iron, 



stockings. In no savage have I ever seen the slightest approach to opposa- 

 bility of the great toe, which is the essential distinguishing feature of apes ; 

 nor have I ever seen it stated that any variation in this direction has been 

 detected in the anatomical structure of the foot of the lower races. 



