fan's 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



422 



more easy conceptions than those founded 

 on our own personality and on the person- 

 ality of parents. ARGYLL Unity of Nature, 

 ch. 12, p. 300. (Burt.) 



2O 65. Remains Showing 



His Daily Domestic Life The Kitchens of 

 the Stone Age. The discovery of rude flint 

 implements, and of bones still bearing the 

 marks of knives, confirmed the supposition 

 that these beds [the Kjb'kkenmoddings, 

 kitchen-middens, or shell-mounds of Den- 

 mark] were not natural < formations, and 

 it subsequently became evident that they 

 were, in fact, the sites of ancient vil- 

 lages; the primitive population having 

 lived on the shore and fed principally on 

 shell-fish, but partly also on the proceeds of 

 the chase. In many places hearths were dis- 

 covered consisting of flat stones, arranged in 

 such a manner as to form small platforms, 

 and bearing all the marks of fire. The 

 shells and bones not available for food 

 gradually accumulated round the tents and 

 huts, until they formed deposits generally 

 from three to five feet, but sometimes as 

 much as ten feet in thickness, and in some 

 cases more than three hundred yards in 

 length, with a breadth of from one hundred 

 to two hundred feet. AVEBUEY Prehistoric 

 Times, ch. 7, p. 215. (A., 1900.) 



2O66. MAN, RECENT ORIGIN OF 

 His Exposure to Special Dangers Enduring 

 Memorials of His Existence. No inhabitant 

 of the land exposes himself to so many 

 dangers on the waters as man, whether in a 

 savage or a civilized state; and there is no 

 animal, therefore, whose skeleton is so li- 

 able to become embedded in lacustrine or 

 submarine deposits ; nor can it be said that 

 his remains are more perishable than those 

 of other animals; for in ancient fields of 

 battle, as Cuvier has observed, the bones of 

 men have suffered as little decomposition as 

 those of horses which were buried in the 

 same grave. But even if the more solid 

 parts of our species had disappeared, the 

 impression of their form would have re- 

 mained engraven on the rocks, as have the 

 traces of the tenderest leaves of plants, and 

 the soft integuments of many animals. 

 Works of art, moreover, composed of the 

 most indestructible materials, would have 

 outlasted almost all the organic contents of 

 sedimentary rocks. Edifices, and even en- 

 tire cities, have, within the times of history, 

 been buried under volcanic ejections, sub- 

 merged beneath the sea, or engulfed by 

 earthquakes; and had these catastrophes 

 been repeated throughout an indefinite lapse 

 of ages, the high antiquity of man would 

 have been inscribed in far more legible char- 

 acters on the framework of the globe than 

 are the forms of the ancient vegetation 

 which once covered the islands of the north- 

 ern ocean, or of those gigantic reptiles which 

 at still later periods peopled the seas and 

 rivers of the northern hemisphere. 



But so far as our interpretation of phys- 



ical movements has yet gone, we have every 

 reason to infer that the human race is ex- 

 tremely modern, even when compared to the 

 larger number of species now our contem- 

 poraries on the earth. LYELL Principles of 

 Geology, bk. i, ch. 9, pp. 147-48. (A., 1854.) 



2067. MAN TESTS RESULTS OF 

 OBSERVATION Knows Nature To Be a 

 Whole. Nature considered rationally that 

 is to say, submitted to the process of 

 thought is a unity in diversity of phe- 

 nomena; a harmony, blending together all 

 created things, however dissimilar in form 

 and attributes ; one great whole (TO jrav) ani- 

 mated by the breath of life. The most 

 important result of a rational inquiry into 

 nature is, therefore, to establish the unity 

 and harmony of this stupendous mass of 

 force and matter, to determine with impar- 

 tial justice what is due to the discoveries 

 of the past and to those of the present, and 

 to analyze the individual parts of natural 

 phenomena without succumbing beneath the 

 weight of the whole. Thus and thus alone 

 is it permitted to man, while mindful of 

 the high destiny of his race, to comprehend 

 Nature, to lift the veil that shrouds her 

 phenomena, and, as it were, submit the re- 

 sults of observation to the test of reason 

 and of intellect. HUMBOLDT Cosmos, vol. i, 

 int., p. 24. (H., 1897.) 



2068. MAN THE CROWN OF EVO- 

 LUTION Not To Be Surpassed, but Perfected. 

 Who can fail to see that the selection of 

 .psychical variations, to the comparative 

 neglect of physical variations, was the open- 

 ing of a new and greater act in the drama 

 of creation? Since that new departure the 

 Creator's highest work has consisted not 

 in bringing forth new types of body, but in 

 expanding and perfecting the psychical at- 

 tributes of the one creature in whose life 

 those attributes have begun to acquire pre- 

 dominance. Along this human line of as- 

 cent there is no occasion for any further 

 genesis of species; all future progress must 

 continue to be not zoological, but psycholog- 

 ical; organic evolution gives place to civili- 

 zation. Thus in the long series of organic 

 beings man is the last; the cosmic process, 

 having once evolved this masterpiece, could 

 thenceforth do nothing better than to per- 

 fect him. FISKE Through Nature to God, 

 pt. ii, ch. 5, p. 84. (H. M. & Co., 1900.) 



2069. MAN, THE DESCENT OF 



Man might just as well have descended from 

 the sheep or the elephant as from the ape. 

 VIRCHOW Address before the Anthropo- 

 logical Congress in Vienna. (Translated for 

 Scientific Side-Lights.) 



2070. MAN THE HIGHEST BEING 

 POSSIBLE UNDER EARTHLY CONDI- 

 TIONS Compktes Design of Animal Kingdom. 

 To me the animal kingdom appears not 

 in indefinite growth like a tree, but a tem- 

 ple with many minarets, none of them capa- 

 ble of being prolonged, while the central 



