112 REPORT— 1876. 



comparisou of the tools and weapons of prehistoric man with those of modern 

 savages (so that the use of even the rudest flint-implements has become quite 

 intelligible), that we can hardly wonder at the vast revolution effected in public 

 opinion. Not only is the belief in man's vast and still unknown antiquity uni- 

 versal among men of science, but it is hardly disputed by any well-informed 

 tlieologian ; and the present generation of science-students must, we should think, 

 be somewhat puzzled to understand what there was in the earliest discoveries that 

 should have aroused such general opposition and been met with such universal 

 incredulity. 



But the question of the mere "Antiquity of Man" almost sank into insigni- 

 ficance at a very early period of the inquiry, in comparison with the far more 

 momentous and more exciting problem of the development of man from some 

 lower animal form, which the theories of Mr. Darwin and of Mr. Herbert Spencer 

 soon showed to be inseparably bound up with it. This has been, and to some ex- 

 tent still is, the subject of fierce conflict ; but the controversy as to the fact of such 

 development is now almost at an end, since one of the most talented representatives 

 of Catholic theology, and an anatomist of high standing — Professor Jlivart — fully 

 adopts it as regards physical structure, reserving his opposition for those parts of 

 the theory which would deduce man's whole intellectual and moral nature from 

 the same source and by a similar mode of development. 



Never, perhaps, in the whole history of science or philosophy has so great a 

 revolution in thought and opinion been effected as in the twelve years from 1859 

 to 1871, the respective dates of publication of Mr. Darwin's ' Origin of Species ' 

 and ' Descent of Man.' Up to the commencement of this period the belief in the 

 independent creation or origin of the species of animals and plants, and the very 

 recent appearance of man upon the earth, were, practically, universal. liOng 

 before the end of it these two beliefs had utterly disappeared, not only 

 in the scientific world, but almost equally so among the literary and educated 

 classes generally. The belief in the independent origin of man held its ground 

 somewhat longer; but the publication of Mr. Darwin's great work gave even that 

 its death-blow, for hardly any one capable of judging of the evidence now doubts 

 the derivative nature of man's bodily structure as a whole, although many believe 

 that his mind, and even some of his physical characteristics, may be due to the 

 action of other forces than have acted in the case of the lower animals. 



We need hardly be surpri.'ied, under these circumstances, if there has been a 

 tendency among men of science to ] ass from one extreme to the other, from a pro- 

 fession (so few years ago) of total ignorance as to the mode of oiigin of all living 

 things, to a claim to almost complete knowledge of the wlu le progress of the 

 universe, from the first speck of living protoplasm up to the highest development 

 of the human intellect. Yet this is really what we have seen in the 1 ist sixteen 

 years. Formerly difliculties were exaggerated, and it was asserted that we had 

 not sufficient knowledge to venture on any generalizations on the subject. Now 

 difficulties are set aside, and it is held that our theories are so well established and 

 80 i'ar-rer.ching, that they explain and comprehend all nature. It is not long ago 

 (as I have already reminded you) since /ffc-fo were contemptuously ignored, because 

 they favoured our now popular views; at the present day it seems to me that facts 

 which oppose them hardly receive due consideration. And as opposition is the 

 best incentive to progress, and it is not well even for the best theories to have it 

 all their own way, I propose to direct your attention to a few such facts, and to 

 the conclusions that seem fairly deducible from them. 



It is a curious circumstance that notwithstanding the attention that has been 

 directed to the subject in every part of world, and the niuuerous excavations con- 

 nected with railways and mines which have offered such facilities for geological 

 discovery, no advance whatever has been made for a considerable number of years 

 in detecting the time or mode of man's origin. The Paleolithic flint weapons 

 first discovered in the North of France more than thirty years ago are still the 

 oldest undisputed proofs of man's existence ; and amid the countless relics of a 

 former world that have been brought to light, no evidence of any one of the links 

 that must have connected man with the losver animals has yet appeared. 



It is, indeed, well known that negative evidence in geology is of very slender 



