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partly from the obscurities of superposition, and partly from 

 the absence of typical fossils to connect them. But, while 

 admitting this defect in details, it must not be imagined 

 there is any uncertainty as to the broader features of the re- 

 cord, or that any new discoveries have ever been at variance 

 with the great order of sequence which modern geology has 

 established. Man, so far as every known fact tends to 

 indicate, belongs exclusively to the Eecent or Post-tertiary 

 period. No remains of his kind, no fragment of his works, 

 no traces of his presence, have ever been detected in earlier 

 formations. But though this is admitted on all hands, the 

 question still remains, at what stage of the Post-tertiary 

 are traces of his existence first detected ? Till recently the 

 general belief has been that man's first appearance on the 

 globe dates back, at the very most, to little more than six or 

 seven thousand years ; and so incorporated had this belief 

 become with others of a more sacred character, that few, 

 even though doubting, had the boldness to express a con- 

 trary conviction. Like the age of our planet, which was 

 also at one time restricted to a few thousand years, the 

 antiquity of man has become a question of science and 

 reason ; . and well-informed minds are now prepared to admit 

 that as the earth has existed for untold ages, so man, its 

 latest creation, may have inhabited its surface for hundreds 

 of centuries. The evidence is purely geological, and as 

 such ought to be treated like any other problem in science, 

 without bar or hindrance from preconceived opinion ; or, as 

 it has been well said by Bishop Tait, in his address to the 

 Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, " The man of 

 science ought to go on honestly, patiently, diffidently, 

 observing and storing up his observations, and carrying his 

 reasonings unflinchingly to their legitimate conclusions, 

 convinced that it would be treason at once to the dignity 

 of science and of religion, if he sought to help either by 



