00 NOTES ON THE 



" This latest outcome of natural science has great significance. Darwin 

 maintained that 'the great principle of evolution stands up clear and firm/ and 

 in the opinion of some, made light of the intelligence which believed that 'man 

 is a separate act of creation.' But here is an investigator of European 

 fame who aftirras that so far as science has pursued inquiries among living 

 species, or in fossiliferous rocks, no progenitor of man has been found. 

 Evolution, then, is not ' clear and firm' in relation to man : he is exceptional 

 in creation. 



"The conclusion of Professor Hartmann touches a statement of Professor 

 Huxley in his reply in the Nineteenth Gentury to the recent article of Mr. 

 Gladstone in the same review. ' The horse,' says Mr. Huxley, ' is the last 

 term of the evolution series to which he belongs, just as Homo sapiens is the 

 last term of the series of which he is a member.' Although this cannot 

 have been intended as a sophism, is it correct ? There is no break in the 

 series to which the horse belongs, but that is not the same with man. Homo 

 sapiens is not ' a last term ' of a known series, for ' a supposed progenitor of 

 our race is a play of fancy.' It is proper to say that Professor Huxley's 

 article is not at all marked by that contemptuous tone which formerly 

 obtained among a certain school of scientists when referring to the first 

 chapter of Genesis. 



"As a picture of the way the earth was prepared for man, the opening 

 chapter of the Bible still stands in its beautiful and unique sublimity." 



As regards the early history of man, it will interest many to read what 

 Sir J. William Dawson, K.C.M.G., F.E.S., has said in a paper published 

 this year, 1886 :— * 



" Geology has divided the whole chronology of animal life on the earth 

 into four great periods : Eozoic, Palasozoic, Mesozoic, and Kainozoic. In 

 the three first of these periods not only are remains of man absent, but we 

 find no examples of those higher animals which are most nearly related to 

 him in structure. It is, therefore, to the last of these periods, the Tertiary or 

 Kainozoic, that we must look for human remains. 



"This, the last of the four great 'times' of the earth's geological history, 

 was ingeniously subdivided by Lyell, on the ground of percentages of marine 

 shells and other invertebrates of the sea. According to this method, which 

 with some modifications in details, is still accepted, the Eocene, or dawn of 

 the recent, includes those formations in which the percentage of modern 

 species of marine animals does not exceed 3|^, all the other species found 

 being extinct. The Miocene (less recent) includes formations in which the 

 percentage of living species does not exceed 35, and the Pliocene (more 

 recent) contains formations having more than 35 per cent, of recent species. 

 To these three may be added the Pleistocene, in which the great majority of 

 the species are recent, and the Modern, in which all may be said to be 

 living. With respect to the higher creatures, the ordinary quadrupeds, such 

 percentages do not apply. These animals begin to appear in the Eocene, 

 but no recent species occur until we reach the later Tertiary or Pliocene. 

 The Eocene thus includes formations in which there are remains of mammals 

 or ordinary land quadrupeds, but none of these belong to recent species or 

 genera, though they may be included in the same families and orders with 

 the recent mammals . This is a most important fact, as we shall see, and 

 the only exception to it is that Gaudry and others hold that a few living 

 genera, as those of the dog, civet, and marten, are actually found in the later 



* Points of Contact between Bevelation and Natural Science, R. T. Soc. 



