THE HUMAN SPECIES. 19 



be found, like geology, not wholly free from arguments 

 that to some may appear hazarded. In this class of 

 researches, notwithstanding the positive nature of a 

 multiplicity of facts before us, while we endeavour to 

 abide by what we deem to be the truth, it is not in- 

 tended to push the inferences farther than hypotheti- 

 cal results, by means of which the phenomena of nature 

 are best explained, and deserve to become facts in 

 science, so far only as they are warranted by the com- 

 pleteness of demonstration. But, as many points of 

 research are, in their nature, not within the reach of 

 every test, much must remain partially speculative, or 

 possessed of that sole degree of probability which a 

 competent judge may be disposed to award, upon dis- 

 passionate reflection, and the existing state of our 

 knowledge. 



Man being possessed of the highest privileges and 

 endowments in the whole domain of zoology, becomes 

 the ultimate standard of comparison to which all 

 animated life is referred, his location in systematic 

 arrangement, and the various conditions, physiolo- 

 gical and historical, connected with the species, are, 

 therefore, a subject of the highest interest. His 

 primeval position, the region selected where history 

 and science can trace his first habitation and develop- 

 ment, deserve an attention which it does not seem to 

 have as yet obtained ; for, by investigation in that 

 quarter alone, a more correct estimate of the date of 

 his era, anterior to the great superficial disturbances 

 which have occurred on earth can be arrived at. Hence 



