Ixxviii REPORT — 1866. 



common ancestor, who probably, could they have seen him or her in the life, 

 had no traceable resemblance to either of them. Thus tM'o animals of a very 

 different form, and of what would be termed very different species, might 

 have a common geological ancestor, and yet the skill of no comparative 

 anatomist could trace the descent. 



From the long continued conventional habit of tracing pedigrees through 

 the male ancestor, we forget in talking of progenitors that each individual 

 has a mother as well as a father, and there is no reason to suppose that he 

 has in him less of the blood of the one than of the other. 



The recent discoveries in palaeontology show us that Man existed on this 

 planet at an epoch far anterior to that commonly assigned to him. The 

 instruments connected with human remains, and indisputably the work of 

 human hands, show that to these remote periods the term civilization coidd 

 hardly be applied — chipped flints of the rudest construction, probably, in the 

 earlier cases, fabricated by holding an amorphous flint in the hand and 

 chipping off portions of it by striking it against a larger stone or rock ; then, 

 as time suggested improvements, it would be more carefuUy shaped, and 

 another stone used as a tool ; then (at what interval we can hardly guess) it 

 would be ground, then roughly polished, and so on, — subsequently bronze 

 weapons, and, nearly the last before we come to historical periods, iron. Such 

 an apparently simple invention as a wheel must, in all probabilitj^, have been 

 far subsequent to the rude hunting-tools or weapons of war to which I have 

 alluded. 



A little stcp-by-step reasoning ■will convince the unprejudiced that what 

 we call civilization must have been a gradual process ; can it be supposed that 

 the inhabitants of Central America or of Egypt suddenly and what is called 

 instinctively built their cities, carved and ornamented their monuments ? if 

 not, if they must have learned to construct such erections, did it not take time 

 to acquire such learning, to invent tools as occasion reqidred, contrivances to 

 raise weights, rules or laws by which men acted in concert to effect the design ? 

 Did not all this require time ? and if, as the evidence of historical times shows, 

 invention marches with a geometrical progression, how slow must have been 

 the earlier steps ! If even now habit, and prejudice resulting therefrom, vested 

 interests, &c., retard for some time the general apphcation of a new invention, 

 what must have been the degree of retardation among the comparatively \\n- 

 educated beings which then existed ? 



I have of course been able to indicate only a few of the broad argiimenta 

 on this most interesting subject ; for detailed results the works of Darwin, 

 Hooker, Huxley, Carpenter, Lyell, and others must be examined. If I appear 

 to lean to the view that the successive changes in organic beings do not take 

 place by sudden leaps, it is, I believe, from no want of an impartial feeling ; 

 but if the facts are stronger in favour of one theoi-y than another, it would be 

 an affectation of impartiality to make the balance appear equipoised. 



The prejudices of education and associations with the past arc against this 

 as against all new views ; and while on the one hand a theory is not to be 

 accepted because it is new and prima facie plausible, still to this assembly' I 

 need not say that its running counter to existing opinions is not necessarilj' 

 a reason for its rejection ; the onus j)rohandi should rest on those who advance 

 a new view, but the degree of proof must differ with the nature of the subject. 

 The fair question is, Does the newly proposed view remove more difficulties, 

 require fewer assumptions, and present more consistency with observed facts 

 than that which it seeks to supersede ? if so, the philosopher wiU adopt it, 

 and the world will follow the philosopher — after many days. 



