468 ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 



application towards the i>roinotiou of the i)ublic welfare. I may how- 

 ever in the short si)ace of time to which an openiug address ought to 

 be coiilined, call your attention to one or two subjects, both theoretical 

 and practical, which are still nuder discussion by anthropologists, an<l 

 on which as yet no general agreement has been arrived at by those who 

 have most completely gone into the <juestions involved. 



One of these (piestions is: What is the antiquity of the human race, 

 or rather, what is the antiquity of the earliest objects hitherto found 

 which can with safety be assigned to the handiwork of man? This 

 question is susceptible of being entirely separated from any speculations 

 as to the genetic descent of mankind ; and even were it satisfactorily 

 answered to day, new facts might to morrow come to light that would 

 again throw the question entirely open. On any view of probabilities 

 it is in the highest degree unlikely that we shall ever discover the exact 

 cradle of our race, or be able to point to any object as the first product 

 of the industry and intelligence of man. We may however 1 think, 

 hope that from time to time fresh discoveries may be made of objects of 

 human art — uiider such circumstances and conditions that we may infer 

 with certainty that at some given point in the world's history mankind 

 existed, and in sufficient numbers for the relics that attest this exist- 

 ence to show a correspondence among themselves, even when discov- 

 eied at remote distances from each other. 



Thirty-one years ago, at the meeting of this association at Aberdeen, 

 when Sir Charles Lyell, in the Geological Section, called attention to 

 the then recent discoveries of Pahtolithic implements in the valley of 

 the Somme, his conclusions as to their antiquity were received with dis- 

 trust by not a few of the geologists present. Five years afterwards, in 

 1864, when Sir Charles presided over the meeting of this association at 

 Bath, it was not without reason that he quoted the saying of the Irish 

 orator, that " they who are born to affluence can not easily imagine how 

 long a time it takes to get the chill of poverty out of one's bones." Xor 

 was he wrong in saying that '* we of the living generation, when called 

 upon to make grants of thousands of years in order to explain the events 

 of what is called the modern period, shrink naturally at first from mak- 

 ing what seems so lavish an expenditure of past time. Throughout our 

 early education we have been accustomed to such strict economy in all 

 that relates to the chronology of the earth and its iniiabitants in remote 

 ages, so fettered have we been by old traditional beliefs, that even when 

 our reason is convinced and we are persuaded that we ought to make 

 more liberal grants of time to the geologist, we feel how hard it is to 

 get the chill of poverty out of our bones." 



And yet of late years how little have we heard of any scruples in ac- 

 cepting as a recognized geological fact, that both on the continent of 

 Europe and in these islands, which were then more closely connected 

 with that continent, man existed during what is known as the (^)uater- 

 nary period, and was a contemporary of the mammoth and hairy rhinoc- 



