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To this objection I replied (May 24) as follows: "With 

 regard to the probable antiquity of man, I will say a few 

 words. First, you will see, I argue for the possibility rather 

 than for the necessity of man having existed in Miocene 

 times, and I still maintain this possibility, and even prob- 

 ability, for the following reasons. The question of time 

 cannot be judged of positively, but only comparatively. We 

 cannot say a priori that ten millions or a thousand millions 

 of years would be required for any given modification in man. 

 We must judge only by analogy, and by a comparison with 

 the rate of change of other highly organized animals. Now 

 several existing genera lived in the Miocene age, and also 

 anthropoid apes allied to Hylobates. But man is classed, 

 even by Huxley, as a distinct family. The origin of that 

 family, that is its common origin with other families of the 

 Primates, must therefore date back from an earlier period 

 than the Miocene. Now the greater part of the family differ- 

 ence is manifested in the head and cranium. A being almost 

 exactly like man in the rest of the skeleton, but with a cranium 

 as little developed as that of a chimpanzee, would certainly 

 not form a distinct family, only a distinct genus of Primates. 

 My argument, therefore, is that this great cranial difference 

 has been slowly developing, while the rest of the skeleton has 

 remained nearly stationary; and while the Miocene Dryo- 

 pithecus has been modified into the existing gorilla, speechless 

 and ape-brained man (but yet man) has been developed into 

 great-brained, speech-forming man. 



" The majority of Pliocene mammals, on the other hand, 

 are, I believe, of existing genera, and as my whole argument 

 is to show how man has undergone a more than generic 

 change in brain and cranium, while the rest of his body has 

 hardly changed specifically, I cannot consistently admit that 

 all this change has been brought about in a less period than 

 has sufficed to change most other mammals generically, except 

 by assuming that in his case the change has been more rapid, 

 which may, indeed, have been so, but which we have no 

 evidence yet to prove. I conceive, therefore, that the im- 

 mensity of time, measured in years, does not affect the argu- 



