be far easier to believe in fairies forming every plant, than in these gemmules.
Finally, it may be noticed that Mr. Wallace, although advocating the doctrine of " Natural Selection," contends that it is not appli- cable to man ; that it will not account for his original or present state ; and that it is impossible, on Mr. Darwin's theory, to account for man's physical organization, for his mental powers, or for his moral nature. To this subject the tenth chapter of his work is devoted.
§ 3. Antiquity of Man.
" Anthropologists are now," as we are told, " pretty well agrecM that man is not a recent introduction into the earth. All who have studied the question, now admit that his antiquity is very great ; and that, though we have to some extent ascertained the mini- mum of time during which he must have existed, we have made no approximation towards determining that far greater period dur- ing which he may have, and probably has, existed. We can with tolerable certainty affirm that man must have inhabited the earth a thousand centuries ago, but we cannot assert that he positively did not exist, or that there is any good evidence against his having existed, for a period of ten thousand centuries." ^
On this it may be remarked, first, that it is a historical fact that nothing is less reliable than these calculations of time. A volume might be filled with examples of the mistakes of naturalists in this matter. The world has not forgotten the exultation of the enemies of the Bible when the number of successive layers of lava on the sides of Mount Etna was found to be so great as to require, as was said, thousands upon thousands of years for their present condition. All that has passed away. Mr. Lyell calculated that two hundred and twenty thousand years were necessary to account for changes now going on on the coast of Sweden. Later geologists reduce the time to one tenth of that estimate. A piece of pottery was dis- covered deeply buried under the deposits at the mouth of the Nile. It was confidently asserted that the deposit could not have been made during the historic period, until it was proved that the article in question was of Roman manufacture. Sober men of science, therefore, have no confidence in these calculations requiring thou- sands of centuries, or even millions of years, for the production of eifects subsequent to the great geological epochs.
The second remark in reference to this great antiquity claimed for the human race, is that the reasons assigned for it are, in the
1 Wallace on Natural Selection, p. 303. TOL. n. 3
84 PART n. Ch. I — origin of man.
judgment of the most eminent men of science, unsatisfactory. The facts urged to prove that men have lived for an indefinite jiumber of ages on the earth, are, (1.) The existence of villages built on piles, now submerged in lakes in Switzerland and in some other places, which, it is assumed, are of great antiquity. (2.) The discovery of human remains in a fossil state in deposits to which geologists assign an age counted by tens, or hundreds, of thousands of years. (3.) The discovery of utensils of diffei-ent kinds made of flint, in connection with the remains of extinct animals. (4.) The early separation of men into the distinct races in which they now exist. On this point Sir Charles Lyell says : " Natural- ists have long felt that to render probable the received opinion that all the leading varieties of the human family have originally sprung from a single pair (a doctrine against which there appears to me to be no sound objection), a much greater lapse of time is required for the slow and gradual formation of races (such as the Caucasian, Mongolian, and Negro) than is embraced in any of the popular systems of chronology." The Caucasian and the Negro are dis- tinctly marked in the Egyptian monuments to which an antiquity of three thousand years is ascribed. We must, therefore, he argues, allow " for a vast series of antecedent ages " to account for the gradual formation of these distinct races. ^ In addition to all these arguments, it is contended that monuments and records exist which prove the existence of man on the earth long before the period assigned to his creation in the Bible.
Lake Dwellings.
In many of the lakes of Switzerland piles have been discovered worn down to the surface of the mud, or projecting slightly above it, which once supported human habitations. These are so numer- ous as to render it evident that whole villages were thus sustained over the surface of the water. These villages, " nearly all of them," are " of unknown date, but the most ancient of" them "certainly belonged to the age of stone, for hundreds of implements resembling those of the Danish shell-mounds and peat mosses have been dredged up from the mud into which the piles wei'e driven." Numerous bones of no less than fifty-four species of animals have been dug up from these localities, all of which, with one exception, are still living in Europe. The remains of several domesticated
1 Principles of Geology, by Sir Charles Lyell, F. R. S., ninth edition, Boston, 1853, p. 660. Also, The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, by the same writer, Philadelphia^ 1863, p. 385.
§3.] ANTIQUITY OF MAN. fJ5
animals, as the ox, sheep, goat, and dog, are included in the number.^
There is evidently in all this no proof of great antiquity. Even as late as during the last century, similar huts, supported on piles, were to be seen. All the animal remains found are of extant species. There is nothing to show that these lake dwellings were even as old as the time of the Romans. The fact relied upon is the absence of metal, and the presence of stone implements. Hence, it is inferred that these villages belonged to the " Stone Age." To this succeeded the " Bronze Age," and to that the Age of Iron. Sir Charles Lyell informs us that the Swiss geolo- gists, as represented by M. Morlot, assign " to the bronze age a date of between three thousand and four thousand years, and to the stone period an age of five thousand to seven thousand."^
It is, however, a mere arbitrary speculation that there ever was a stone age. It is founded on the assumption that the original condition of man was one of barbarism, from which he elevated himself by slow ^degrees ; during the first period of his progress he usee] only implements of stone ; then those of bronze ; and then those of iron ; and that thousands of years elapsed before the race passed from one of these stages of progress to another. Hence, if remains of men are found anywhere in connection with stone implements, they are referred to the stone age. According to this mode of reasoning, if in an Indian village flint arrow-heads and hatchets should be found, the inference would be that the whole world was in barbarism when those implements were used. Ad- mitting that at the time the lake dwellings were inhabited, the people of Switzerland, and even all the people of Europe, were unacquainted with the use of the metals, that would not prove that civilization was not at its height in Egypt or India. Moreover, the assumption that the original state of man was one of barbarism, is not only contrary to the Bible and to the convictions of the great body of the learned, but, as is believed, to the plainest historical facts.
Fossil Human Remains.
Much more weight in this discussion is attached to the discovery of human remains in the same localities and under the same circum- stances with those of animals now extinct. From this it is inferred that man must have lived when those animals still inhabited the earth. These human remains are not found in any of the ancient fossiliferous rocks. The Scriptural fact that man was the last of 1 Antiquity of Man, chap. ii. p. 17. ^ Jbid. p. 28.
86 PART IL Ch. I — origin OF MAN.
the living creatures which proceeded from the hand of God, stands unimpeaclied by any scientific fact. A nearly perfect human skel- eton was found imbedded in a limestone rock on the island of Guadaloupe. That rock, however, is of modern origin, and is still in process of formation. The age assigned to this fossil is only about two hundred years. A fragment of conglomerate rock was obtained at the depth of ten feet below the bed of the river Dove, in England, containing silver coins of the reign of Edward the First. This shows that it does not require many years to form rocks, and to bury them deeply under the surface. The remains on which stress is laid are found only in caverns and buried under deposits of peat or of earthy matter. Geologists seem to be agreed a.s to the fact that human bones have been found in certain caves in France, Belgium, and England intimately associated with the remains of animals now living, and with those of a few of the extinct races.