222 REV. R. A. BULLEN, B.A.. ON EOLITHIC IMPLEMENTS. 
often had the opportunity of collecting information, and if they 
had written out a list and had kept it, we should have been 
saved much that is now extremely doubtful and upon which there 
is conflict of opinion. 
I have no hesitation in expressing the belief that pleistocene 
man did exist, for the reason that will eventually be found—that 
some of these stones on the table were made by pleistocene 
man in pleistocene times. I think there is not a stone here 
that was not made by man, for though they bear signs of 
natural agency there is much that shows man’s handiwork 
—that they were finished and used by man for a variety of 
purposes, and the evidence of use is evidenced by the signs of 
wear on them. 
I have brought with me some stones, not being certain whether 
Mr. Bullen would have some. Here is one, which is still more 
interesting than those other two on the table. It is the same 
shape and form, but this was originally made by plateau man. 
It has a ferruginous coating. 
[The speaker here exhibited and explained the features of his 
specimens, including neolithic, paleolithie, and eolithic samples. | 
Professor LANGHORNE OrcHARD.—We shall all agree in thanking 
Mr. Bullen for his interesting paper. 
I was very much struck, as he went along, with what may be 
called hasty generalizations. Some stones are supposed to be the 
work of man, and it is inferred that if others are lhke them they 
too must be the work of man. Some stones which appear to be 
human implements are found in the early pleistocene, and it is at 
once conceived that man must have lived in the early pleistocene. 
That is a style of argument which enthusiasts are very apt to 
adopt; but I think we ought to be very greatly on our guard in 
that kind of thing. Perhaps nothing has more hindered the 
progress of science in the past than hasty generalizations. Professor 
Huxley well remarked that a scientific man is very careful in saying 
that he knows a thing in the absence of very complete evidence. 
Professor Rupert Jones made a good remark in the same direction 
—that in some levels you find together paleeolithic, neolithic, and 
eolithic. Along with implements made by the old Egyptians and 
other men of not very great geological antiquity you find these 
very things, and you conclude that because they are in the same 
level they are of the same age? ‘No, not on that account,” you 
