LECTURE I. 15 



mediately under man^s control^ and tlie forms of wliicli he 

 endeavours to alter according to liis wants. 



This part of the question — perhaps the most interesting — 

 has given rise to the greatest controversy. Very recently this 

 subject has again been handled by Darwin, the eminent natu- 

 ralist, and we shall in the sequel have to treat of his theory of 

 the origin of species. Here I may say this much, that, 

 though I do not adopt this theory with all its inferences, it 

 yet appears to me to be nearer the truth than any other, and I 

 do not hesitate to say that I accept it with regard to nearly 

 allied types. 



I have already observed that our question has also its his- 

 torical, or, if you like, its geological side, which cannot be 

 neglected, although we again run the danger of turning the 

 milk of human kindness into poison, and Christian love into 

 grim hatred. When we desire to study the influence which 

 the natural conditions exercise upon man, we must go back as 

 far as possible into the history of the human race, since the lapse 

 of time is a factor which must always be kept in view. "We must 

 necessarily form an alliance, not merely with the historian 

 and antiquary, but with the geologist ; we must appropriate 

 their results, and apply these to the solution of our problem. 

 Here, also, the difficulties are numerous. The delusions and 

 mystifications to which antiquaries are exposed, have yielded 

 materials to the novelist. But in this maze the right path 

 has been detected ; and as the testimony of Egyptian antiquities 

 shows that the civilisation of mankind reaches further back 

 than the period assigned to Adam by the Jewish lawgiver, 

 we are at once justified in declaring that the antiquity of man 

 reaches back to a period when extinct animals peopled our 

 continent, and that this period exhibits a state of civilisation 

 which can scarcely bear comparison with that of the aborigines 

 of Australia. 



One might suppose that the question regarding the anti- 

 quity of man on the globe concerns science only ; such, how- 

 ever, does not seem to be the case. The Christian theologian 

 immediately discovers that it is a mere presumption of the 



