199 
ORDINARY MEETING, April 19, 1869. 
The Rey. W. Mitchell, M.A., Vice-President, in the 
Chair. 
The Minutes of last Meeting were read and confirmed, and the following 
election announced : — 
Second-class Associate : — Robert 0. Turnbull, Esq., Bishop Auckland. 
Professor Macdonald then read the following paper : — 
ON MAN’S PLACE IN CREATION ; GEOLOGICALLY, 
CHRONOLOGICALLY , ZOOLOGICALLY, ETHNO- 
LOGICALLY, AND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
By W. Macdonald, Esq., M.D., F.R.S.E., &c., Professor 
of Civil and Natural History in the University of St. 
Andrew’s. 
T HE Duke of Argyll, in a small volume just published, 
“ On Primeval Man,” which had already appeared in 
Good Words, gives an able analysis of the views on this sub- 
ject held by the late distinguished Archbishop of Dublin, 
Dr. Whately, the great logician ; contrasting with theln the 
opinions which Sir John Lubbock expressed at the meeting 
of the British Association, at Dundee, in 1867. The Duke 
subsequently, however, submits his own views upon this 
subject. 
The Archbishop maintains that mere savages, in the lowest 
degree, or even in anything approaching to the lowest degree, 
of barbarism, in which they can possibly subsist at all, never 
did and never can, unaided, raise themselves into a higher 
condition ; and even when in contact with superior races 
it is extremely difficult to teach them the simplest arts ; 
they never invent or discover anything beyond what is abso- 
lutely necessary to keep them alive, on the barest subsistence. 
Even necessity, the mother of invention in races having some 
degree of thoughtfulness and intelligence, produces no effect 
on these low savages. Whatever the natural powers of the 
human mind may be, some instruction from without is required 
