PREFA TOR Y NO TE. 



u n willingness to accept the descent of man from some 

 lower form of vertebrate life ; but, reminding us of the 

 special attention which, of late years, he has given to 

 anthropology, he affirms that such evidence as exists 

 is not only insufficient to support that hypothesis, but 

 is contrary to it. " Every positive progress which we 

 have made in the region of prehistoric anthropology 

 has removed us further from the demonstration of this 

 relation." 



Well, I also have studied anthropological questions 

 in my time ; and I feel bound to remark, that this asser- 

 tion of Professor Virchow's appears to me to be a 

 typical example of the kind of incautious over-state- 

 ment which he so justly reprehends. 



For, unless I greatly err, all the real knowledge 

 which we possess of the fossil remains of man goes no 

 farther back than the Quaternary epoch ; and the most 

 that can be asserted on Professor Virchow's side 

 respecting these remains is, that none of them present 

 us with more marked pithecoid characters than such 

 as are to be found among the existing races of man- 

 kind. 1 But, if this be so, then the only just conclusion 

 to be drawn from the evidence as it stands is, that 

 the men of the Quaternary epoch may have proceeded 



1 I do not admit that so much can be said ; for the like of the 

 Neanderthal skull has yet to be produced from among the crania of 

 existing men. 



