37 
out the extreme caution which was necessary in dealing with the subject, 
as it lay within the domain of the archeologist, the anthropologist, and 
the geologist ; neither of whom was sufficient, alone by himself, to offer 
a very strong opinion on the subject. Great care was also necessary with 
regard to the facts of the discoveries themselves, as the objects discovered 
were liable to get mixed with other objects below them ; and this was 
important in the case of cave-deposits, in which there might be interments 
of a later date than the human skeletons deposited in the caves. The question 
was now very much within the province of the geologist, whose business it 
was to determine the antiquity of the deposits in which the discoveries 
may have been made. After alluding to several recent discoveries in France, 
Spain, and Switzerland, the President remarked that each successive dis- 
covery, or presumed discovery, must be received in a cautious but candid 
spirit ; and, looking to the many sources of doubt and error which attached 
to isolated discoveries, their watchword must for the present be “ caution, 
caution, caution.” With regard to the physiognomy of the negro, as delineated 
upon ancient monuments being the same as that existing in the present 
day, a well-known fact should not be forgotten, namely, that a special type 
will develop rapidly, and then remain to all appearance permanent ; the 
writings and investigations of Dawson, Parker, and others have shown this.* 
Finally, I do not think we can, in any of our scientific investigations in 
regard to these subjects, have a better watchword than Mr. Evans’s, the more 
we investigate and the more wo know, the more will this appear ; and I hope 
our faith is not held so lightly as for us to allow its safety to be compro- 
mised by the lights and shadows which may fall upon it during our labours. 
Professor Bikks. — I think it should hardly have been expected that I 
could, in one paper, treat the whole of the large question which my 
subject involves. I have only dealt with one specific point on which 
the theory now in vogue, for insisting on the high antiquity of man, 
mainly rests as a definite result of science. I should be sorry to have it 
supposed that I say that any one who does not accept my view of the anti- 
quity of man is an infidel. I only say that so far as that point is concerned 
he departs from the Bible testimony. I do not mean to say that any 
one who does not believe in the one point of the 7,000 or 8,000 years 
does not believe in 19-20ths of the Bible absolutely and in the New Testa- 
ment, but he seems to me to have surrendered one integral part of the 
whole message, and in so doing he impairs his faith in the rest. I do not 
deny an ice age, but I have a view of my own which is quite consistent 
with the narrative of the Bible .t 
The meeting was then adjourned. 
* Yol. X. p. 384. 
t Professor Andrews and other Americans have argued that the Ice age 
ended scarce 8,000 years ago ; Sir C. Lyell and Mr. Geikie admit that the 
Glacial period in Scotland may be brought down to the ‘’Polished Stone 
age,” or 6,000 years ago. ( Recent Origin of Man.) 
