1878.] 
Doctrine of Development . 
463 
that, owing to a variety of causes, no precise nomenclature 
of colours had become established. One of these causes 
probably was that the colours of the objects of most im- 
portance, and those which were most frequently mentioned 
in songs and poems, were uncertain and subject to variation. 
Blood was light or dark red, or when dry blackish ; iron was 
grey or dark, or rusty ; bronze was shining or dull ; foliage 
was of all shades of yellow, green, or brown ; and horses or 
cattle had no one distinctive colour. Other objects — as the 
sea, the sky, and wine — changed in tint according to the 
light, the time of day, and the mode of viewing them ; and 
thus colour, indicated at first by reference to certain coloured 
objects, had no fixity. Things which had more definite and 
purer colours — as certain species of flowers, birds, and 
inseCts — were probably too insignificant or too much des- 
pised to serve as colour-terms ; and even these often vary, 
either in the same or in allied species, in a manner which 
would render their use unsuitable.” 
Mr. Wallace might here have added that the attention of 
the Oriental and Mediterranean nations was always turned 
towards man rather than to external nature. Hence their 
comparative indifference to beautiful scenery, their negleCt 
of landscape painting, their failure in physical science, and 
their contempt for the industrial arts — so remarkable if we 
consider their degree of civilisation and the high intellectual 
development to which some of them had attained. That 
such nations should have no very precise nomenclature for 
colours — a nomenclature chiefly required in the pursuit of 
Natural Science and in certain manufactures— -affords no 
proof that their colour-sense was not as perfect as our own. 
Hence it cannot be contended that the faCts signalised by 
L. Geiger and by Mr. Gladstone enable us to draw any 
trustworthy inference as to the antiquity of the human 
race. 
This brings us in contaCt with the subject which we are 
only just learning to discuss with scientific calmness and 
candour. The day is scarcely over since the dreams of 
Archbishop Usher and his coadjutors were supposed to be 
founded upon the direCt testimony of Revelation. The 
notion that the world was “ created in autumn 4008 years 
before the vulgar Christian era,” and that our species had 
consequently not existed for quite 6000 years, was accepted 
as a main point of faith. FaCts and arguments which 
pointed to a longer date raised gratuitous alarm among 
Christians, and exultation no less gratuitous among atheists. 
These mists and clouds are now clearing away, and thinkers 
