1 80 Prehistoric and Savage Man 



is needed to avoid injustice and consequent error — error in 

 answering the grave question, What is man ? Is he to be 

 regarded but as a part and product of the organic world, and 

 essentially one in his nature with the brutes, or does his 

 existence indicate a break in the continuity of nature ? Two 

 beliefs as to man's origin are, as you know, now in vigorous 

 conflict. 



I. According to one of these beliefs man, with all his 

 intellectual faculties, has arisen by a process of gradual 

 change from an ape-Uke ancestor. 



II. According to the other belief, man's origin is due to 

 some sudden change in the course of evolution, which change 

 has resulted in the introduction into the world of an intel- 

 lectual principle different in kind, and not only in degree, 

 from anything existing in the merely animal world. 



Let us endeavour to see which of these beliefs is sup- 

 ported by the science of ethnography, and let us, if you 

 please, assume the truth of the theory that all other animals 

 have been evolved by a process of natural generation — a 

 theory which commends itself to my own mind. 



Starting with this assumption, we are met at once, on our 

 course to explore the question of man's origin, by the 

 obvious truth that man's body has a close resemblance to 

 that of a beast, and, above all, to that of an ape, and it is 

 urged that, if these animals have been evolved one from 

 another, then there is an almost overwhelming probability 

 that man has been similarly evolved. It is also further 

 urged that prehistoric Archaeology proves that man has 

 existed in a condition less removed from that of the highest 

 brute animals than from that of the Greeks of the time of 

 Pericles and of that of the members of our own. learned 

 societies. Finally, it is contended by some persons that 

 ethnography supplies us with examples of men stiU surviv- 

 ing in so low a condition as almost to fill up any gap which 



