126 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 



with, the great stoutness and strong muscular impressions of the 

 bones found with it, have been regarded as confirmatory evidence 

 of this supposition. It is quite certain however that the charac- 

 ters for which this skeleton is eminent, are found, though perhaps 

 in a less degree, in the rude tribes of America and Australia. It 

 is also doubtful whether this skeleton really indicates a race at all. 

 It may have belonged to one of those wild men, half crazed, half 

 idiotic, cruel and strong, who are always more or less to be found 

 living on the outskirts of barbarous tribes, and who now and then 

 appear in civilized communities, to be consigned perhaps to the 

 penitentiary or to the gallows, when their murderous propensities 

 manifest themselves. Still, as we shall show under our third 

 head, this Neanderthal man is nearer in some respects to our 

 historical idea of antediluvian man than any other of these very 

 ancient examples ; though, as Lyell properly suggests, there 

 is no absolutely valid reason for assuming that he may not even 

 have belonged to the same nation with the Engis man ; since near- 

 ly as great differences are found in the skulls of individual mem- 

 bers of some unmixed savage races. 



One remarkable conclusion however deducible from the an- 

 swer to this our first question, must not be omitted. Of all the 

 criteria for the distinction of races of men, the skull is probably the 

 most certain, and as any one may perceive, who reads Dr. Wilson's 

 book, it affords in really reliable hands, the best possible evidence 

 of distinctness or of unity, except where great mixtures have 

 occurred. Now man is one of the most variable animals ; and yet 

 it would seem that, since the post-pliocene period, he has changed 

 so little that the skulls of these post-pliocene men fall within the 

 limits of modern varieties ; and this, while so great changes have 

 occurred that multitudes of mammals once his contemporaries 

 have utterly perished. Now if these men are so ancient as many 

 geologists would assume, nay if they are even 6000 years old, 

 surely the human race is very permanent, and Prof. Huxley may 

 well say that " the comparatively large cranial capacity of the 

 Neanderthal skull, overlaid though it may be with pithecoid bony 

 walls, and the completely human proportions of the accompanying 

 limb-bones, together with the very fair development of the Engis 

 skull, clearly indicate that the first traces of the primordial stock 

 whence man proceeded, need no longer be sought by those who 

 entertain any form of the doctrine of development, in the newest 

 tertiaries ; but that they may be looked for in an epoch more dis- 



