BVENING DISCOURSES. 75D 
Clarke, and under the Red Crag by my friend Mr. Reid Moir. Thus in England 
heterodox opinion traces man to the commencement of the Pliocene period. I 
need only add that eoliths, as evidence of man’s existence, are rejected by many 
whose opinion is entitled to our respect. The usually accepted opinion, then, 
is that man makes his appearance in a definitely human form about the com; 
mencement of the Pleistocene period ; there are also these who refer bis evolution 
to a much earlier period of geological history. 
One thing is certain, whatever period is adopted, the time must be long 
enough to allow mankind to be distributed and differentiated as we now see it in 
the world of to-day. Modern human races, white and yellow, red, black, or 
brown, although so different on the surface, are yet so similar in their structure 
and constitution that we must suppose all of them to have arisen from a common 
stock. Let us look at the problem in a concrete form. I will take as opposite 
and contrasted types of modern humanity the fair-haired, white-skinned, round- 
headed European and the woolly-haired, black-skinned negro of ‘Central Africa, 
and set them side by side and study them from a purely zoological point of 
view. We must admit that both are highly specialised types; neither represents 
the ancestral form. Now, in seeking for the ancestral form of our breeds of 
dogs, of horses, or of cattle, we select one of a generalised and ancient type—such 
as we conceive might have been modified to produce-modern breeds. We must 
apply the same system to human races. If we search the present world for the 
type of man who is most likely to serve as a common ancestor for both negro 
and European we find the nearest approach to the object of our search in the 
aboriginal Australian. He is an ancient and generalised type of humanity; he 
is not the direct ancestor of either negro or European, but he has apparently 
retained to a greater degree than any other living race the characters of that 
common stock from which both European and negro arose. If, then, we accept 
the Australian native as the nearest approach to the common ancestor of modern 
mankind—and it must be admitted that it is not a low form of man we are 
postulating as a common ancestor—can we form any conception of the length of 
time which would be required to produce the African and the European from this 
common stock? What do we know of the rate at which mankind evolves? There 
is the classical instance of Egypt. During his residence in that country Professor 
Elliot Smith and his colleagues—Dr. Wood Jones and Dr. Derry—had_ oppor- 
tunities of examining the remains of Egyptians belonging to every period—from 
pre-dynastic times to the present day. They had thus facilities for studying 
the evolution of a people over a period of at least 6,000 years—probably longer. 
They found evidence of an infiltration of foreign blood both from the north 
and from the south; they noted minor alterations in the configuration of the 
head and in the state of the teeth and jaws, but they could not say that the 
men at the end of that period were in any respect a higher or more specialised 
type than the inhabitants of the Nile Valley at the beginning of that period. 
There is no need to go beyond our own country to find evidence that the evolution 
of man proceeds at a slow rate. We have now material enough to form a fairly 
accurate conception of the physical condition of the people who lived in Britain 
these 4,000 years past. Were the prehistoric Britons to come amongst us now, 
dressed in our modern garb, they would pass unnoticed as fellow-citizens. The 
Neolithic men of France, Switzerland, and Germany were not in anywise a 
lower race than their successors of to-day. When we pass. to examine human 
remains belonging to more remote periods we are confirmed in our belief that the 
evolution of human races is a slow process. In this country there have been 
found at Galley Hill, at Bury St. Edmunds, and at Ipswich human remains 
which belong at least to the middle part of the Pleistocene period. These 
remains indicate a kind of man somewhat different from ourselves, but yet. of 
the same type. In size of brain and in complete adaptation to an upright posture 
they cannot be described as less highly evolved than we are. Such evidence as 
we have, then, leads us to believe that the evolution of a new and distinct 
variety of mankind requires an extremely long period of time. 
If we again ask: How long will it take to evolve the African on the one 
hand and the European on the other from a common stock—Australoid we 
suppose in form ?—it is very apparent, on our present knowledge. we must make 
a very considerable allowance of time. My own ovinion is that the whole length 
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