TRACKS OF A RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF PRIMEVAL MAN. 145 



Fredk. Wright, of Oberlin, computed from the length of the gorge 

 of Niagara that the Falls originated some 7,000 years ago; 

 certainly not more than 10,000 years ago. In the discussion that 

 followed, five speakers took part, two of whom supported Professor 

 Wright. Professor Geikie said that the human period was shorter 

 than many writers had claimed. 



Professor Langhorne Orchard said that Professor Boyd Dawkins 

 declared that there was no evidence of man before the post-glacial 

 river gravels, which would imply an antiquity within limits of from 

 five to ten thousand years.' He thought that the Meeting was 

 greatly indebted to the author of this paper : he had shown that 

 there was evidence that Palaeolithic man had a religion and believed 

 in a future state. The evidence given in the paper might be slight 

 in detail, but its cumulative effect was great. The placing of food 

 beside a corpse showed a distinct belief that the soul of the man 

 continued to exist after death, so the carving of the sun and the 

 serpent on the baton pointed to a belief in good and evil spirits, 

 and there is much force in the argument from the praying figure 

 (page 129). He desired to express his cordial agreement with the 

 author in his remarks as to evolution. 



Mr. W. Woods Smvth : — Mr. Whitley leaves us in doubt as to 

 where he places Palaeolithic man and the Pleistocene Period. Were 

 they pre-Adamic or post-Adamic in the realm of time 1 To place 

 them as post-Adamic would be opposed to all the sound evidence 

 that we possess. And we cannot push the Adamic era back beyond 

 seven thousand years. 



The facts Mr. Whitley adduces in favour of primitive man's 

 religion do not constitute evidence. Had Palaeolithic man closed up 

 the cave he dwelt in at the end of his age, then these facts would 

 amount to evidence. But we know that he did not do so, and men 

 of later times dwelt in these caves after him. Ivory is a heavy 

 substance ; and the ceaseless earth tremors and movements, and the 

 occasional efforts of the cave-dwellers to search the floors of their 

 dwelling, would tend to make such relics sink, and so would render 

 the facts submitted of no value as evidence. 



We know, however, that primitive man must have had a religion. 

 His dreams, as Herbert Spencer points out, would affect his mind. 

 The reappearance in dreams of dead ancestors and friends would 

 lead him to regard them as still living, and reverence for them would 



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