550 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 



but not our ancestors. Was Emerson thinking of this sort 

 of thing when he wrote: 



" Thrice I have moulded an image, 

 And thrice outstretched my hand, 

 Made one of day, and one of night, 

 And one of the salt sea sand." 



After the segregation of the branches represented by Pithe- 

 canthropus the erect, the slouching man of Neanderthal and 

 Heidelberg, and the fine-brained Piltdown man, there was 

 left the stem of modern man, which broke up in Pleistocene 

 times into African, Australian, Mongolian, and European 

 races. It is possible that the modern man type was dis- 

 tinguishable from collaterals a million years ago. If we 

 mean by the antiquity of man the time since he reached 

 what may be called the human standard in size of brain, 

 Dr. Keith's conclusion is that this was reached by the com- 

 mencement of the Pliocene period, which means over a mil- 

 lion years ago. When the evidence of flints is considered, the 

 tendency is to go further back still. 



There may be errors in the conclusions of the authocities 

 whom we have followed, and the estimates of time are very 

 uncertain, but there is no great likelihood of errors which 

 will affect the general impressions that alone concern us here. 

 The antiquity of man is on a grand scale. There is a solem- 

 nity in the patience of the age-long man-ward adventure which 

 has crowned the evolutionary process upon the earth. Three 

 million of years ago the Primate stem sent out its first tenta- 

 tive branches, and the result was a tangle of monkeys ; aeons 

 passed and the main stem, still probing its way, gave off the 

 Anthropoids, which certainly rise to great heights. There 

 was no pause, however, yet without hurry other experiments 



