1884] Man in the Tertiaries. IOOI 
MAN IN THE TERTIARIES.! 
BY EDWARD S. MORSE. 
MAS: profoundly interested in his origin and antiquity, finds 
himself hampered in his investigations by the opinions and 
prejudices that have grown up with him. 
He finds it well-nigh impossible to step outside of himself and 
regard himself as a mammal among hundreds of other species of 
mammals. 
The formidable dogmas which he has erected, and perpetuated 
through centuries, to explain his origin, have become obstructive 
barriers which have had to be assailed, one after the other, to 
clear the way for rational investigation, and the arrogance, fury 
and final desperation of their defense have been only faintly por- 
trayed by history. 
The most formidable, and indeed the chief of these barriers 
was the one interwoven with theological dogma. Its foundation 
was laid fifteen centuries ago, and each century added its accumula- 
tions, until finally by violence and otherwise it became a part of 
man’s inheritance, to assail which was to imperil his most 
cherished convictions, With the partial removal of these barriers, 
one becomes mindful of the precious evidences of man’s antiquity, 
which have been overlooked, or forever lost; evidences all the 
More precious because so difficult to obtain. 
ese barriers being no longer obstructive, other barriers arose, 
having for their foundation evidence, and having for their builders 
men who belonged to that class which had been mainly instru- 
mental in clearing the ground of previous obstacles. 
The most important of these barriers was the one erected by 
Cuvier in the idea declaring that man being the last and highest 
of Creation, and intimately associated with the present fauna, could 
never have been contemporary with the extinct species of mam- 
mals found in the quaternary beds. Fortified by this barrier, 
science repelled for a time all evidences brought forward to show 
man’s remains were synchronous with those of extinct mam- 
mals, and the authors of these evidences were treated with neglect 
and even ignominy. 
The assaults of this barrier are now historic. The final and 
"Address deliy i i S. Morse, before the Section of An- 
thropology ae Saera Adv. Science, Sept. 4th, 1884. 
