66 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 



those savage races now living, whom they seem to have 

 resembled most in habits ; and it may be concluded that these 

 most ancient races at present known were at least as remote 

 from the original stock of the human species as they are from 

 us." 



In short, the anatomical as well as the geological 

 evidence pointed to the immense antiquity of the human 

 species, a view which is now universally accepted. 



The substance of the foregoing lecture, as of the two 

 delivered the previous year in Edinburgh, was included 

 in Mail's Place in Nature, which was completed by 

 Huxley in 1862, but of which it will be more convenient 

 to speak under the year of publication (1863). 



The controversies about the supposed peculiar characters 

 of the human brain were finally concluded at the British 

 Association Meeting held in Cambridge during this 

 year, when Professor Flower publicly demonstrated that 

 these characters are in fact also to be found in 

 apes. A sarcastic allusion to the unfair tactics of anti- 

 Darwinians appears in a letter written after that meet- 

 ing : — " A ' Society for the propagation of common 

 honesty in all parts of the world ' was established at 

 Cambridge " (Life, i, p. 199). The commodity in ques- 

 tion would appear to be more abundant now than then, 

 although this society was not destined to survive for long. 



Half a century ago the facts of paleontology then 

 known were often construed adversely to evolution, and 

 early in 1 862 this led Huxley to give, as one of the 

 Secretaries of the Geological Society acting for the absent 

 President an " Anniversary Address," which has since 

 become famous (Q. J. Geol. Soc, xviii, 1862, pp. 

 xl-liv. Delivered February 21, 1862. Sci. Mem., ii, 

 XXIX, p. 512. Coll. Essays, " Geological Contem- 

 poraneity," viii, p. 272). It may be described as a 



