K) LECTURE 1. 



layman to assign to the Mosaic Adam a recent period in his- 

 tory, and to assert that there had existed a previous civilisa- 

 tion, in which man knew not the use of metals, and prepared 

 his tools and weapons from flints and bones. 



We must not, however, lay the blame altogether on theolo- 

 gians; the reproach must also be extended to the representatives 

 of science, though in a lesser degree. In consequence of the 

 dicta of some eminent natui-alists at the time when the facts 

 were less numerous, the opinion generally prevailed that man 

 belonged to the most recent geological epoch, and had only 

 existed in the present condition of the globe. The remains of 

 extinct animals intermixed with human bones, had, no doubt, 

 been found ; but these facts had either been ignored, or very in- 

 differently investigated. To such an extent did the belief in the 

 late appearance of the higher animals prevail, that the existence 

 of fossil apes in the tertiary strata was denied.* Soon, however, 

 the facts accumulated, and they were all the more readily accepted 

 as they were thought to relate to apes only. Just read the lamen- 

 tations of that enthusiastic inquirer Boucher de Perthes, as to the 

 trouble he had to induce some few unprejudiced naturalists 

 merely to inspect the beds from which he extracted flint 

 hatchets. " Practical people," he observes, " smiled, shrugged 

 their shoulders, and would not look at the implements ; in one 

 word, they were afraid of a heresy. And when the facts 

 became so patent, that each could verify them for himself, I 

 met," says he, " with a greater obstacle than opposition, 

 sarcasm, and persecution — the silence of contempt. The facts 

 were no longer denied, they were buried in oblivion. Then 

 followed explanations more wonderful than the facts them- 

 selves ; the stone hatchets, it was said, were the products of 

 fire ; they had been thrown up by a volcano in a fluid state, 

 and, falling into water, had, in cooling, assumed the shape of 

 hatchets. Others said it was intense cold that burst the flints 

 into fragments resembling knives and hatchets. Then, again. 



* Even by Cuvier. It was not until four years after his death that the 

 first fossil apes were discovered. — Editor. 



