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the Egyptian monuments were reared, and that the fair hair 
and blue eyes of the Germanic races were contrasted with the 
dark hair and dark eyes of the South Italian beauty, when 
Juvenal wrote, as much as now, and to the arguments based 
thereon, for vast periods wherein physical changes could have 
been developed, he adds, “A new law, however, is coming 
into view — it is, that species when first introduced have an 
innate power of expansion, which enables them rapidly to 
extend themselves to the limits of their geographical range, 
and also to reach the limits of their divergence into races. 
These limits once reached, the races run on in parallel lines 
until they one by one run out and disappear. According to 
this law the most aberrant races of men might be developed 
in a few centuries, after which divergence would cease, and 
the several lines of variation would remain permanent, at least 
so long as the conditions remained under which they originated. 
This new law is coming more distinctly into view, and will 
probably altogether remove one of the imagined necessities 
of a great antiquity of man. It may prove also to be applicable 
to language as well as to physical characters.” 
It is, however, in geology and the existence of human remains 
in the earth’s crust that the advocates of high antiquity for 
man find, as they suppose, their strongest proofs. The argu- 
ment has been thus fairly stated : — “ The modern doctrine of 
man’s high antiquity rests mainly on two premises, though 
these are supplemented by other presumptions of a secondary 
kind. First, certain flints from Brixham Cave, the valley of 
the Somme, and caverns in Belgium, are affirmed to have been 
plainly fashioned into tools, spears, or hatchets by the hands 
of savage men. And, next, the beds of gravel or stalagmite 
where they were found are said to have been deposited many 
myriads of years ago.” Now, in reference to these two 
premises, if either fail, the conclusion is rendered invalid. 
(a) As to the first, viz., the artificial character of the so-called 
flint implements, — whilst on the one hand there are those who 
do not scruple to declare that “ a flint flake is to an antiquary 
as sure a trace of man as the footprint in the sand was to' 
Robinson Crusoe,” and, again, that “ the flint hatchets of 
Amiens and Abbeville seem to the writer as clearly works of art 
as any Sheffield whittle ” ; on the other hand, there are experts 
who can find no evidence in support of such an opinion, but 
who, on the contrary, regard the evidence that the fractured 
flints are formed by natural causes to be abundant and conclu- 
sive. They point to the fact that, if flint nodules be thrown 
into such a machine as Blake’s stone-breaker, flakes will come 
out in splinters as perfect as any now referred to human 
