60± PSYCHOZOIC ERA— AGE OF MAN— RECENT EPOCH. 



longs to the class Mammalia, along with quadrupeds. Neither has he 

 an order of his own, but belongs to the order of Primates, along with 

 monkeys, lemurs, etc. Even a family of his own, the Hominidw, is 

 grudgingly admitted by some. But from the psychical point of view 

 it is simply impossible to overestimate the space which separates man 

 from all lower things. Man must be set off not only against the 

 animal kingdom, but against the whole of Nature besides, as an 

 equivalent: Nature the book — the revelation — and man the inter- 

 preter. 



So in the history of the earth : from one point of view the era of 



man is not equivalent to an era, nor to an age, nor to a period, nor even 



to an epoch. But from another point of view it is the equivalent of 



the whole geological history of the earth besides. For the history of 



^^ the earth finds its consummation, and its interpreter, 



^\, and its significance, in man. 



1 But there is still another and perhaps a better 



3 reason for making this a primary division. There is 

 S now going on under our eyes, and by the agency of 



Fig. 967.— Dinornis giganteus. x ^ (from a pho- Fig. 968.— Aptornis didiformis, x & (from a 

 tograph of a skeleton in Christchurch Mu- photograph cf a skeleton in Christchurch 



seum, New Zealand). Museum, New Zealand). 



man, a change of fauna and flora as sweeping, and far more rapid, 

 than any which has ever taken place in the history of the earth. We 

 do not sufficiently appreciate this, only because we are in the midst of 



