118 FLINT FINDS. 



would have assigned them from any other independent facts and 

 circumstances. 



Hence there has arisen a spirit of antedating early remains, 

 among many archaeologists, from a desire to make their own con- 

 jectures synchronize with those of the geologists ; and this spirit, 

 depending upon the results of another independent science, threat- 

 ens to be fatal to the exact method of deduction which ought to 

 be observed by all those who enquire into the nature and value of 

 objects of antiquity. Hence it is that very crude ideas have been 

 entertained as to the dates of tumuli, kistvaens, dolmens, or crom- 

 lechs, fortified camps, crannoges, or phahlbauters, &c. ; and hence 

 the strange speculations as to the supposed cannibalism of the 

 early inhabitants of the northern isles of Scotland ; and so forth. 

 Hence; too, the support given to the theory of periods — stone, 

 bronze, and iron, especially by the northern antiquaries, but by no 

 means based on sound archasological deductions. 



Another consequence of this spirit of accommodation is, the 

 yielding up of men's better judgment and good sense to the in- 

 flvience of great names. Because certain geological magnates have 

 pronounced, e,x catliedrd, as to the remote ages of certain geological 

 formations ; and because certain archaeologists have fancied that 

 they have seen implements of human make in these formations ; 

 therefore down comes the former class with thundering dicta as 

 to the immensely remote period when such and such a river 

 scooped its way through such and such a bed of gravel or other 

 detritus ; and, finding the latter class ready to declare that certain 

 portions of these gravels contain human instruments, enunciates 

 astounding theories as to the age of the human species, and the 

 place of man in the scheme of creation. At the same time, the 

 archseologist, partly flattered, and partly scared, at finding his re- 

 searches noticed by the great man of science, yields up his own 

 humble judgment, and submits to the inferences of the geological 

 professor. The latter class is more in fault than the former ; the geo- 

 logist may, or may not, be correct as to his estimates of periods ; 

 but the archseologist, who knows very little about the action of 

 cosmological causes, by trying to link the operations of man to 

 the unknown operations of nature, and by asserting that he sees 

 evidence of contrivance in what, really, is only the result of inor- 

 ganic action, yields up his right of independent judgment, and 



