3IO 



THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 



fore a Mediterranean race already existed 12,000 years 

 ago. But what space of time was requisite to enable 

 primitive man to separate into races, is entirely beyond 

 computation, and the more so as not the slightest trace 

 of him has hitherto been found. 



With the invariable testimony of Geology that the 

 periods of the terrestrial strata imperceptibly merged into 

 one another, and that, especially from the Tertiary, 

 through the Diluvial period, to the present age, conti- 

 nuity has been only locally interrupted, the question of 

 the " fossil man," formerly looked upon as cardinal, has 

 assumed another aspect. In Europe, man lived with 

 the mammoth and the rhinoceros with a bony nasal par- 

 tition (Elephas primogenius, Rhinocerus tichorhinus). 

 It has been asserted that European man existed as early 

 as the upper Tertiary age, but the evidence is disputa- 

 ble. Such remains as we have of this oldest man known 

 to us, display a high grade of development, and cer- 

 tainly belong to the period at which man had already 

 found in language the implement wherewith gradually 

 to free himself from the dross of his lowly origin. 

 Whether the primitive man be found or not, his origin 

 is certain. 



