President's Address. 



327 



accordance with the gradual disappearance of the coloured 

 varieties before tbe spread of the white variety of our kind. 

 Here, then, we have a twofold argument that may avail us 

 in our researches, viz., the earlier appearance, and, con- 

 versely, the earlier disappearance of the lower varieties of a 

 species ; and applying this to Man, the coloured varieties, 

 which are evidently inferior (whatever may be said to the 

 contrary), must have long preceded the white, just as now 

 they are passing away before it. 



In this way we carry the antiquity of man — high as it 

 may be in Europe — to a still higher antiquity in the other 

 continents of the Old World, and which must be geologi- 

 cally investigated before any definite conclusion can be 

 arrived at, either as regards antiquity or developmental 

 descent.* The European men of the Bovine and Keindeer 

 periods evidently belonged to the white or Caucasian variety, 

 but we have no certain evidence whether the Abbeville 

 flint-fashioners were of Caucasian, Mongolian, or other 

 variety. To whatever variety they belonged, they were 

 clearly of a date immediately post-glacial, though, could it 

 be shown by craniology that they were of other type than 

 the Caucasian, it would, in our opinion, be further proof of 

 their bigh antiquity. If we are to pursue the subject of 

 man's antiquity in Africa or Asia, this question of type must 

 constitute one of the main elements of determination, for it 

 would be outraging every principle in science to apply the 

 test of variation and development to the other orders of life, 

 and shrink from applying it in the solitary instance of man. 

 Where we can prove by arch geological means a high anti- 

 quity for man, let us adopt them ; where we can show the 

 same result by geological methods, let us not neglect them ; 

 but at the same time let us also value those palseontological 

 doctrines of progression and development which have thrown 

 so much light on the order and connection of vitality in 

 general. If there be such a law of progression, man must 



* Since the above was written, we observe that implements of quartzite 

 have been discovered in the lateritic formation of Madras by Messrs Foote and 

 King of the Indian Geological Survey, thus opening the way to this new and 

 much desiderated line of evidence. 



