TRACES OF A RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF PRIMEVAL MAN. 147 



verified, and they could therefore only yield highly problematical or 

 speculative results. 



Geology was a speculative science : it involved the assumption 

 that the forces in operation to-day were identical with the forces that 

 had been in operation throughout all past time ; it involved the 

 assumption that all geological changes took place by slow and gradual 

 processes involving the lapse of long periods of time ; it involved 

 the assumption that the lower the type of the organism embedded 

 in fossil remains the earlier must have been the date of its appear- 

 ance. But these were mere assumptions, not ascertained scientific 

 facts, and the inferences drawn from them were challenged by a rival 

 school of geologists, who maintained that certain vast changes in the 

 earth's crust took place, not gradually, but suddenly, and that the 

 period of time claimed for the occurrence of these changes might be 

 abridged by centuries or even by millenniums. 



Similarly, it was sometimes said that a psalm which indicated a 

 nobly spiritual conception of God could not have been written by 

 David, but must have been the work of a later writer, because the 

 age in which David lived was an age of primitive barbarism in 

 which a highly spiritual conception of God could not yet have been 

 developed. But this was only an inference drawn from an assump- 

 tion and much of the work of the Higher Critics rested on a 

 similarly insecure foundation. 



Professor Hull contested Mr. Anstey's assertion. Geology was not 

 an inexact science. The fossil-bearing strata were evidently 

 deposited slowly, for they were deposited in water, but neither 

 Geology nor Palaeontology had anything to do with stone imple- 

 ments. Perhaps if Mr. Anstey would read Lyell's Principles of 

 Geology he would come to the conclusion that Geology was an 

 exact science as regarded its principles. It was only as regards 

 details that it could be considered " inexact." 



The Chairman asked the meeting to return a hearty vote of 

 thanks to Mr. Whitley for his valuable paper. It was true that the 

 evidences he had been able to bring forward as to the religious 

 beliefs of primitive man were but slight. Nevertheless they were 

 very interesting. As to the antiquity of the earliest men, could 

 they be certain that these primitive men were really contemporary 

 with the animals whose bones were found with them 1 Might not 

 the men have been later dwellers in these caves 1 



L 2 



