CHAPTER III 

 THE EARLIEST TRACES OF MAN 



IN the eocene, or earliest cenozoic, it is not pre- 

 tended by anyone that man existed, except inferen- 

 tial ly, on the ground that if the remains we know in 

 the earliest caves and gravels belong to men who 

 were developed from apes on the method of natural 

 selection, their ancestors must have existed, at least 

 in a semi-human form, in the eocene. But no such 

 precursors of man are yet known to us. It would 

 have been pleasant to believe that man arrived in 

 time to see the beautiful forests and to enjoy the mild 

 climate of the golden age of the miocene, and this 

 would have agreed with some human traditions ; but 

 the probabilities are against it, as we know no one 

 species of higher animal of the many found in the 

 miocene that has survived to our time. The privilege 

 of enjoying the forests of the miocene age seems to 

 have been reserved for some large and specialised 

 monkeys, which even Darwinians can scarcely claim 

 as probable ancestors of man. 1 It would appear also 

 that owing to increasing refrigeration of climate these 



1 Dryopithecus and Mesopithccus. 



