"In examining the history of mankind, as well as in examining the phenomena of the material world, when we cannot trace the process by which an event has been produced, it is often of importance to be able to show how it may have been produced by natural causes. Thus, although it is impossible to determine with certainty what the steps were by which any particular language was formed, yet if we can show, from the known principles of human nature, how all its various parts might gradually have arisen, the mind is not only to a certain degree satisfied, but a check is given to that indolent philosophy which refers to a miracle whatever appearances, in the material and moral worlds, it is unable to explain."— DUGALD STEWART. ΜΑΝ WHERE, WHENCE, AND WHITHER BEING A GLANCE AT MAN IN HIS NATURAL-HISTORY RELATIONS BY DAVID PAGE, LL.D. F.R.S.E. F.G.S. AUTHOR OF PAST AND PRESENT LIFE OF THE GLOBE,' 'PHILOSOPHY OF GEOLOGY,' DOMINA BIB EDINBURGH EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS 189.9.36. PREFACE. A SKETCH of the thoughts expressed in the following pages was given in two lectures to the Members of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution in November 1866. Exciting considerable interest at the time, and receiving through the newspapers a wider audience than that to which they were originally addressed, these lectures, as might have been expected, met with a somewhat varied reception. By many the views they contained were adopted without reserve; by some, though not adopted, they were received in a spirit of candour and inquiry; while by a few the whole argument was met with the most vehement and unreasoning opposition. Had the last contented themselves with merely opposing-every man having a right to the free utterance of his opinions the argument on the author's part might have terminated with the lectures; but as they re |