VI PREFACE. 



leisure to pursue them farther, and to 

 test the results arrived at by our 

 growing knowledge in the sciences 

 which bear upon the early condition 

 of Mankind. The distinctions here 

 taken between different branches of 

 the subject, have not, so far as I know, 

 been elsewhere laid down with adequate 

 precision. Yet all safe reasoning depends 

 upon such distinctions being carefully 

 observed. If they are sound, they place 

 an insuperable bar in the way of cer- 

 tain conclusions respecting Primeval Man, 

 which have been too hastily assumed 

 as following from recently discovered 

 facts. At all events these conclusions 



