HIS GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS. 137 



appealed to by sciolists in support of tlie recentness 

 of the human race, must be extended to much wider 

 limits than is generally supposed ; and even were we 

 to restrict it to post-tertiary times, these times have 

 witnessed so many changes that thousands of cen- 

 turies must have already passed in their fulfilment. 



Honestly and unreservedly, the whole spirit and 

 tendency of the geological argument is in favour of 

 a high antiquity to the human race — ^inexpressible in 

 years and centuries, and only to be estimated relatively 

 to other physical occurrences. It is of no avail to 

 appeal to the unequal operation of physical forces in 

 time past, to cataclysms, and other similar uncertain- 

 ties. The slow formation of deposits in which relics 

 of human art have been found, the character of the 

 contemporaneous animals, the changes in climate which 

 these animal remains imply, and the altered distribu- 

 tions of sea and land which must have given rise to 

 these climatic changes, all point unmistakably to an 

 inconceivable lapse of time. To shut our eyes against 

 these facts, or to attempt to explain them away in 

 favour of any preconceived opinions as to the anti- 

 quity of man, would be to discard the clearest deduc- 

 tions of reason, and wilfully and untruthfully to resist 

 conviction. 



Our sixth proposition, therefore, is that there is 



