3° 



PEOCEBDIKGS OF THE 



iy. The antiquity and origin of Man: his development, not from the 

 Anthropoids directly, hut, on diverging lines, from an ancient 

 common ancestor. 



" And it is also fabled that all this work of 



Creation occurred but six thousand years ago ! ^ Which 

 Creation, the state of civilization in India and China some 

 five thousand years back, is sufficient to disprove without the 

 abundant aid derived from Geological evidence ; all proving 

 an inconceivably ancient history for Man/' (p. 2.) 



" Man and the Ape are co-descended from some 



primary type, '^ (p. 6.) 



Remembering " that it is not to the higher evolutions of 

 Man nor to the lower * variations of the Monkey that we 

 must look in this matter, but to just the reverse of each/' 

 The lecture continues "And then in many respects a 

 striking parallel is observed to exist between the 'lord of 

 creation ' and his Quadrumana relatives the Chimpanzee and 

 the Ourang Otang which clearly establishes the extremely 

 rational view I have advanced and enables us to experience 

 very little difficulty in tracing back these kindred creatures 

 to a remote, an ancient, but a general stock; although exactly 

 what that common forefather was is as likely to forever 

 remain as profound a mystery as the astounding problem of 

 how the beginning of things could take place or the absolute 

 ending of all matter can ever occur ! 



" We have never found any living or fossil link to form a 

 chain between Man and the Ape, nothing to close the gap 

 separating the two related animals like Owen's rhynchosaurus 

 bonds the avines to the saurians, and the pliosanrus unites 

 the pterodactyle to the crocodile. I doubt that any such 

 creature will be discovered; to my mind there never was 

 occasion for its existence : more likely some relic of an, at 

 present, unknown animal proving to be the forerunner of 

 both species, will be exhumed out of the debris of an age 

 immediately antecedent to both : '' (pp. 6-8.) 



"I feel assured that skeletons or rock-preserved hairy 

 specimens of this ancestor of the two species will ultimately 

 be excavated from the strata preceding that in which remains 



of Man and of the Monkey have been found, The 



greater perishability and much more restricted production 

 and distribution of the human frame in those remote ages, 



* This and tlie preceding five words are so faintly printed as to be 

 almost nnrecognisable, but it is believed tliat the reading adopted- above 

 is correct. [Since confirmed bv reference to a more clearly printed copy 

 kindly lent by Mr, J. F. Sleeper.— E. B. P. Aug. 12, 1913.] 



