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the existence of our race and the antiquity of its 

 records are as childish as were the ideas and assump- 

 tions current fifty years ago about the age of this 

 planet. Partly owing to theological prejudices, and 

 partly to the want of a thorough philosophy of his- 

 tory, the views of the relations and bearings of 

 general history have been hitherto as inaccurate as 

 the results would be if an anatomist should attempt 

 to restore the . whole organisation of an extinct 

 ichthyosaurus from the dorsal bones of our lower 

 lizards, and to make a foreshortened drawing in per- 

 spective of such a fanciful object before and behind. 

 Would it be matter of surprise if such a drawing 

 should finish in mythical or mystical arabesques, and 

 the whole representation had, as we say, neither head 

 nor taO. 1 Yet such is literally the case, down to the 

 present time, with the framework of general history. 

 Sometimes it has been traced out without any know- 

 ledge of facts, sometimes in direct opposition to facts 

 which had been long established by criticism. The 

 conventional system excludes the former part of 

 general history and displaces the latter part ; the 

 entire basis, the original type of the restoration, is 

 false and positively absurd." And again (vol. v.), 

 " The computation of time by years of the world, 

 even for the pre-Christian history, being as absurd 

 and irrational as it is for the epochs of the earth and 



