Anthropology: The Tertiai-y Man. 41 



39. It is a little singular, on the face of it, that 

 his own bones do not appear just as readily as 

 theirs. There is no natural law requiring the more 

 rapid consumption of human bones than of beasts* 

 bones. If one kind are fossilized, why not the 

 other ? Cuvier demonstrated that the bones of an- 

 cient warriors show no more readiness to decom- 

 pose than those of their horses. 



40. Still, not to be wanting to the true spirit of 

 scientific thought, let us contemplate those flints or 

 stones of the tertiary age, some with what is called 

 a conchoidal fracture or a bulb of percussion in 

 them, such as would result from an intentional blow, 

 and therefore indicating a person who intended the 

 blow; some apparently scorched, as having their 

 outer surface disintegrated; and therefore indicat- 

 ing a person who scorched them. Now, we are to 

 consider these signs as being so indifferent in their 

 character, that they point indeed to a man who 

 made them, but they postulate only an ape-man, an 

 anthropitheque, one who knew just enough to do 

 that, but knew no more and knew no better. This 

 is the logic which satisfied the French scientists in 

 the gathering at Grenoble; and they agreed by vote 

 that the existence of a tertiary being was now 

 proved. 



41. We cannot help thinking that other scientists, 

 of quite an opposite school, have some ground to 

 be w r ell pleased with this course of reasoning. The 

 form of the logic used impresses the mind favor- 



