1 8 histinct. 



the earth is known only by the geologic accumula- 

 tions above their remains, — and whose manner of 

 life is revealed only by the remnants of their feasts 

 and the instruments of stone buried in the caves 

 which their owners once inhabited. Every ancient 

 human skull is measured — as to capacity and angles 

 — to determine the animal affinities of man. Geol- 

 ogy and history, sacred and profane, are scanned as 

 never before — as eagerly as though the continued 

 existence of the race depended upon the evidence 

 which these records can give of the manner in which 

 man came upon the earth and of the time when he 

 came. Bone caves become ancestral mansions, 

 rude implements of stone the measure of man's 

 earliest ingenuity, and the dreariness of the glacial 

 period the paradise to Avhich he was welcomed. 

 Laborers eager and zealous, claim to have already 

 linked the human race to the stock from whence 

 sprang the ape and gorilla, and trace through 

 devious lines, its comparatively modern origin to 

 the Ascidian moUusk. 



Others as busy and eager quite, are peering into 

 the future to learn what the race is yet to become. 

 They sum up the advances made by man within the 

 historic period, and especially within the last centu- 

 ry, and then inquire, " What will the powers and 

 opportunities of man do for him v/hen he has num- 

 bered as many more centuries upon the earth as he 

 has already numbered ? " 



Many generations must pass away before there 

 can be any essential agreement among men who 

 seek either for the origin or the destiny of man from 

 the light of science. And so far as we can see, the 



