146 



REV. D. GATH WHITLEY, ON 



lead him to deity and worship them. However, the word 

 " sacrifice " does not suit their religion. There is no evidence of it 

 anywhere. It is singular that Mr. Whitley should mention that the 

 great mammals of tropical zones once dwelt in lands now temperate, 

 and yet should be quite sure there were no large serpents there also. 

 It is singular also that he should be so emphatic about the 

 perfections of primitive man, and yet make no reference to the 

 formation of the skulls of the Neanderthal man and of the man of 

 Spy, both evidently representing races less truly human than Homo 

 sapiens of later times. 



Mr. "Walter Maunder said that it was quite true, as Mr. Gath 

 Whitley had so frankly admitted, that the evidence to show that the 

 earliest Quaternary men possessed a religion was but slight. But 

 that which was astonishing, was, not that the evidence was slight but, 

 that there should be any evidence forthcoming at all. Consider, if 

 the British race perished and ten or perhaps a hundred thousand years 

 hence another race visited these islands, -what indications would be 

 left of our religion 1 Nothing but the foundations would remain of 

 our churches. Would there be anything about the foundations of 

 St. Paul's to indicate the religious beliefs of those who had built it % 



The Rev. J. J. B. Coles said thev ou^ht not to be afraid to face 

 the strongest arguments of scientific men. There was a great 

 opportunity before the Victoria Institute to present a full and 

 complete synthesis of the evidence drawn from science, from 

 philosophy, and from revelation on this subject of the antiquity of 

 man. He hoped that some day the Institute would set aside an 

 afternoon for the special discussion of this question. During the 

 dark ages much knowledge was lost ; they learnt from Holy Scrip- 

 ture that when men did not choose to retain God in their knowledge, 

 He gave them over to judicial blindness ; thus some of this lost 

 knowledge had never been recovered. 



The Rev. M. Anstey said they must draw a distinction between 

 exact sciences like Mathematics and Astronomy, and speculative 

 sciences like Geology or Palaeontology. In the exact sciences we 

 reached certain definite positive conclusions, commanding universal 

 assent, and to which the element of certainty was attached. But 

 there were other sciences into which the element of speculation very 

 largely entered. They were built up on the basis of certain 

 presuppositions or assumptions, the truth of which had never been 



