THE "AGE OF MAN." I7 



History, or more correctly, History of People, is itself 

 only the latter half of the Anthropolithic Epoch, while 

 even the first half of this Epoch must be reckoned as a 

 prehistoric period. Hence this last main period, reaching 

 from the close of the Cienolithic Epoch to the present time, 

 can only be called the " age of man," inasmuch as the 

 diffusion and differentiation of the different species and 

 races of man, which have so powerfully influenced all the 

 rest of the organic population of the globe, took place 

 during its course. 



Since the awakening of the human consciousness, 

 human vanity and human arrogance have delighted in 

 regarding Man as the real main-purpose and end of all 

 earthly life, and as the centre of terrestrial Nature, for whose 

 use and service aU the activities of the rest of creation were 

 from the first defined or predestined by a "wise providence." 

 How utterly baseless these presumptuous anthropocentric 

 conceptions are, nothing could evince more strikingly than 

 a comparison of the duration of the Anthropozoic or Quater- 

 nary Epoch with that of the preceding Epochs. For even 

 though the Anthropolithic Epoch may embrace several hun- 

 dreds of thousands of years, how small is this time when 

 compared with the millions of years that have elapsed since 

 the beginning of the world's organic history down to the 

 first appearance of the human race ! 



If the entire duration of the organic history of the earth, 

 from the generation of the first Monera down to the present 

 day', is diA'ided into a hundred equal parts, and if then, 

 corresponding with the relative aA^erage thickness of the 

 intervening strata-systems, the respective percentages are 



