25 
the excavation of the existing valleys, and the formation of 
terraces along their slopes, to river-action/’* 
Why then, with all this geological evidence of uncertainty 
recorded by the masters of the science, do the same masters or 
their disciples, dogmatize on the subject of long periods ? Why 
has this scientific dogmatism crept into elementary treatises, 
and is there laid down with all the confidence of axiomatic know- 
ledge ? Yerily the domain of fashion is not confined to dress, 
but certainly extends to geological theories. In Dr. Draper’s 
“ History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, the 
following dogmata occur : — “Recent researches give reason to 
believe that under low and base grades the existence of man can 
be traced back into tertiary times.” Now, on this subject the 
most recent authorities on both sides the Atlantic not only 
give no countenance to this, but flatly deny it. The reviewer 
of Mr. Boyd Dawkins’s book, in the Athenaeum, in the face of 
all the geological evidence, quietly says : — “ We may infer with 
a high degree of probability that a palaeolithic people migrated 
from the East into Europe along with the peculiar pleistocene 
Fauna in the jpre-glacial age, and disappeared with the same 
Arctic mammalia, leaving behind them as their representatives 
the Eskimos; they were cave-dwellers, and occupied their time 
with hunting and fishing, and supporting life in a rigorous 
climate. An indefinite interval of time which cannot be 
measured by years, separated these palaeolithic peoples from 
their successors of the prehistoric times.” 
Sir Charles Lyell, in his “Student’s Geology” adduces the 
old arguments, the disappearance of various species of animals, 
the deepening and widening of valleys, the change in the 
course of rivers, the formation of solid floors of stalagmite and 
the change of climate, to support his statement, that “ the 
3,000 or 4,000 years of the historical period do not furnish us 
with any appreciable measure for calculating the number of 
centuries which would suffice for such a series of changes ; 
which are by no means of a local character, but have operated 
over a considerable portion of Europe.” We have seen that 
the opposite conclusion is at least equally tenable, and far 
more probable. According to Mephistopheles in “ Faust” : — 
“Words answer well, when men enlist ’em, 
In building up a favourite system ; 
With words men dogmatize, deceive ; 
With words dispute or words believe ; 
And be the meaning much or little, 
The word can lose nor jot nor tittle.” 
* Geol. Soc. Proceedings. 
t H. S. King& Co., 1875, p. 195. 
