the existence of our race and the antiquity of its records are as childish as were the ideas and assumptions current fifty years ago about the age of this planet. Partly owing to theological prejudices, and partly to the want of a thorough philosophy of history, the views of the relations and bearings of general history have been hitherto as inaccurate as the results would be if an anatomist should attempt to restore the whole organisation of an extinct ichthyosaurus from the dorsal bones of our lower lizards, and to make a foreshortened drawing in perspective of such a fanciful object before and behind. Would it be matter of surprise if such a drawing should finish in mythical or mystical arabesques, and the whole representation had, as we say, neither head nor tail? Yet such is literally the case, down to the present time, with the framework of general history. Sometimes it has been traced out without any knowledge of facts, sometimes in direct opposition to facts which had been long established by criticism. conventional system excludes the former part of general history and displaces the latter part; the entire basis, the original type of the restoration, is false and positively absurd." And again (vol. v.), "The computation of time by years of the world, even for the pre-Christian history, being as absurd and irrational as it is for the epochs of the earth and

The

the universe, must be abandoned as the unscientific assumption of rabbins and scholastics, which has grown into a wilful mischievous falsehood, in the face of the annals of nature and of mankind."

Our fifth proposition therefore is, that as concerns man's antiquity, neither tradition, monumental remains, nor written history, afford any certain or reliable information beyond a few thousand years; but that we may safely infer, from the slow rate at which nationalities are evolved and civilisation developed, an existence for the human species immeasurably beyond that of the commonly received chronology. We admit that new nationalities and races may be evolved at very different ratios, according to the geographical conditions under which they are placed; but the most prejudiced in favour of a limited chronology must allow that six or seven thousand years seems too short a period for the evolution of the civilised races, with different forms and features, different languages, different religions, different architecture, and different laws and customs, that have successively appeared and disappeared in the old world, to say nothing of the uncivilised and prehistoric peoples that must necessarily have preceded them.

GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS.

Relative Chronology of Geology-Nature of Geological Evidence -Ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron-High Antiquity of Man in Western Europe, as evidenced by Remains of Human Art-Higher Inferential Antiquity in Asia and the EastOur Sixth Proposition.

SEEING then, that so little certainty respecting the antiquity of man is to be obtained from historical sources, we shall now inquire what light geological investigation has recently thrown on the subject, and especially on the relative chronology of those races. that preceded all history. It is obvious that in every country we pass backwards, from the operations of to-day to those of our ancestors, and from these, so far as they are recorded, to those of which we have no written account, and which are evidenced by architectural ruins, sepulchral monuments, and other remains of art. Even from these we can carry the inquiry into more primitive ages, when man, ignorant of the metals, fashioned stone implements, sheltered in caverns, subsisted alone by hunting and fishing, and

left traces of his presence in the relics of his rude feasts, and in his lost or cast-away weapons. These remains being found partly on the surface, partly imbedded in the soil, and partly covered over by sands, gravels, peat-mosses, lake-silts, cave-earths, and other superficial accumulations, belong to the domains of archæology and geology—to archæology so far as the determination of the race who left them is concerned, and to geology for an approximation to their relative antiquity. We say, relative antiquity, for geology, carrying the investigation beyond the limits of history, can assign no dates in years and centuries, but simply state the relations in time that one event bears to another event. Thus, the remains of an animal found at two feet under the surface of a peatmoss must be much more recent, considering the slow growth of peat, than those of another animal occurring at the depth of twenty feet; but as there is no determined ratio for the growth of peat, the geologist cannot affix a date to either relic, nor say how much in years the entombment of the one preceded the entombment of the other. Again, an animal like the great Irish deer, unnoticed in history, must be regarded as prehistoric and of high antiquity, and any human remains found in unmistakable connection with its bones, must be considered as contemporaneous. But, as we have no assignable chronology

for the Irish deer, so we can have none for the human remains, and can only consider their antiquity in relation to other geological events that took place before or came after them. Or let us take Herculaneum and Pompeii, which in a certain sense belong to the domain of geology. Had there been no record of the entombment of these cities, we could only, by a comparison of their works of art, have arrived at an approximation of the time when they were overwhelmed; and had these remains borne no resemblance to anything of Roman, Greek, Etruscan, Phoenician, or Egyptian art, then we must have assigned to them a date prior to any of these nationalities, and consequently of unknown antiquity. Or further, if shells now living in the Greenland seas be found occurring in British clay-beds, it would indicate that at some former period a climate similar to that of Greenland prevailed over British latitudes, for we have no reason to suppose that the relations of life to external conditions were ever otherwise than at present; and as climatic changes depend on the slow oscillations and distributions of sea and land, an immense time must have elapsed since those boreal shells lived in British waters. How long that may have been in years and centuries geology makes no condescension, but contents herself in the meantime with a relative chronology.