328 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society, 



be as amenable to it as the rest of creation, and whatever 

 variation occurs in his race must be taken, along with other 

 elements, as a measure of time and duration. We are aware 

 that many geologists shrink from the test of variation, and 

 feel an uneasy tenderness whenever the question of man's 

 descent becomes involved in their researches and specula- 

 tions. Truth, however, will never be attained by such weak- 

 ness. In science as in morals error becomes only more 

 deeply rooted, and bigotry more emboldened, the longer that 

 honest conviction hesitates, or gives to its beliefs a timorous 

 and uncertain utterance. 



Such are some of the reasonings that suggest themselves 

 in reviewing the question of " Man's Place in the Geological 

 Eecord." In the first place, let it be treated without bias 

 or predilection, as a matter of natural history and geology. 

 In the second place, let us avail ourselves of all the evidence 

 that history, archaeology, geology, and palaeontology can 

 supply. And in the third place, let us, as true geologists, 

 be wary in assigning dates in years and centuries, while the 

 whole superstructure of our science is founded on a relative 

 and not upon an absolute chronology. Guided by these 

 methods, it would appear that man has been an inhabitant 

 of Southern and Western Europe from a time immediately 

 succeeding the close of the glacial epoch, and that in these 

 regions his antiquity dates, if not from the very earliest, at 

 least from the earlier of the Post-tertiary formations. How 

 long ago this may have been in years and centuries, there 

 is no condescension on the part of legitimate geology ; but 

 clearly it is far, very far, beyond the limits of the ordinarily 

 received chronology of the human race. But ancient as this 

 may be, the implement-bearing gravels, the cave-earths, the 

 peat-mosses, shell-mounds, and lake-dwellings of Europe 

 cannot be taken as a measure of antiquity for Asia, from 

 which, as everything tends to show, the first races of Europe 

 were derived by the ordinary means of natural dispersion 

 and selection. And even were the first appearance of the 

 White or Caucasian race geologically determined in Asia, 

 the first appearance of the coloured varieties (Mongol, Negro, 



