AND HIS COTEMPORARIES. 599 



it elected to follow, was craving for accessible information 

 on the subject ; and a well-considered digest of the evidence 

 of the case, in all its bearings, was the only thing wanting 

 to secure for it the accepted belief of mankind. 



To recapitulate, I have endeavoured to show in the pre- 

 ceding remarks, that as far back as 1836 I was engaged on 

 questions concerning the remote antiquity of man in that 

 part of the globe which has been generally believed to have 

 been the cradle of the human race; that, in 1844, I had put 

 forward speculations on the subject, founded upon palseonto- 

 logical grounds ; that in 1854, by published evidence, I was 

 occupied with the same subject; that since then I have been 

 concerned with researches which have borne directly or in- 

 directly upon the same point ; and that the cave inquiry which 

 I undertook led immediately to the re-investigation of the 

 whole evidence respecting the antiquity of man by geologists. 

 .My aim in the above narrative has been to satisfy my 

 readers that, as a humble labourer in the field, I have not 

 been unfamiliar nor unconnected with the subject of the 

 present work. But in reading it over, I experience the 

 ' surgit aliquid amari,' in the feeling that the claims of the 

 individual float too prominently on the surface throughout. 

 This, doubtless, is an unseemly trait, which bears with it its 

 own corrective in the impression which it is calculated to 

 leave behind. There are occasions, however, in which the 

 retired and unobtrusive student is justified in speaking out ; 

 and this has appeared to me to be one. In support of all 

 that I have stated I have cited either published or authentic 

 documents. The important record of history sooner or later 

 apportions to each his due ; while the true reward that the 

 inquirer into the truths of nature has lies in the rational 

 gratification which the pursuit carries inseparably with it, 

 and in the satisfaction that in his day and generation 

 he has contributed his mite to the advancement of that 

 natural knowledge with which the destiny of the human 

 race is so intimately bound up. After a few years the little 

 he may have done may be absorbed in a single line or sen- 

 tence of the great code, or it may be fused with it, ' in 

 succum et sanguinem,' without a trace even of the source 

 from which it emanated. But while the observer ' frets his 

 brief existence on the stage,' he should take care, in the ab- 

 stract interest of truth, apart from personal considerations, 

 that what he may have done shall not be passed over by de- 

 fault of his own appearance to record it. This is the only 

 apology which I have to offer for the unseemly trait alluded 

 to. Much of what has been stated may appear to be beside 

 the question ; but there is no royal road to the extension of 



