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development of man out of some lower type of animal, must have occurred before his intellect had raised him above the condition of the brutes, at a period when he was gregarious, but scarcely social, with a mind perceptive but not reflective, ere any sense of right or feelings of sympathy had been developed in him. He would be still subject, like the rest of the organic world, to the action of "natural selection," which would retain his physical form and constitution in harmony with the surrounding universe. He was pro

bably at a very early period a dominant race, spreading widely over the warmer regions of the earth as it then existed, and in agreement with what we see in the case of other dominant species, gradually becoming modified in accordance with local conditions. As he ranged farther from his original home, and became exposed to greater extremes of climate, to greater changes of food, and had to contend with new enemies, organic and inorganic, slight useful variations in his constitution would be selected and rendered permanent, and would, on the principle of " correlation of growth,” be accompanied by corresponding external physical changes. Thus might have arisen those striking characteristics and special modifications which still distinguish the chief races of mankind. The red, black,

yellow, or blushing white skin; the straight, the curly, the woolly hair; the scanty or abundant beard; the straight or oblique eyes; the various forms of the pelvis, the cranium, and other parts of the skeleton.

But while these changes had been going on, his

mental development had, from some unknown cause, greatly advanced, and had now reached that condition. in which it began powerfully to influence his whole existence, and would therefore become subject to the irresistible action of "natural selection." This action would quickly give the ascendency to mind: speech would probably now be first developed, leading to a still further advance of the mental faculties; and from that moment man, as regards the form and structure of most parts of his body, would remain almost stationary. The art of making weapons, division of labour, anticipation of the future, restraint of the appetites, moral, social, and sympathetic feelings, would now have a preponderating influence on his well being, and would therefore be that part of his nature on which "natural selection" would most powerfully act; and we should thus have explained that wonderful persistence of mere physical characteristics, which is the stumbling-block of those who advocate the unity of mankind.

We are now, therefore, enabled to harmonise the conflicting views of anthropologists on this subject. Man may have been, indeed I believe must have been, once a homogeneous race; but it was at a period of which we have as yet discovered no remains, at a period so remote in his history, that he had not yet acquired that wonderfully developed brain, the organ of the mind, which now, even in his lowest examples, raises him far above the highest brutes ;-at a period when he had the form but hardly the nature of man, when

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he neither possessed human speech, nor those sympathetic and moral feelings which in a greater or less degree everywhere now distinguish the race. Just in proportion as these truly human faculties became developed in him, would his physical features become fixed and permanent, because the latter would be of less importance to his well being; he would be kept in harmony with the slowly changing universe around him, by an advance in mind, rather than by a change in body. If, therefore, we are of opinion that he was not really man till these higher faculties were fully developed, we may fairly assert that there were many originally distinct races of men; while, if we think that a being closely resembling us in form and structure, but with mental faculties scarcely raised above the brute, must still be considered to have been human, we are fully entitled to maintain the common origin of all mankind.

The Bearing of these Views on the Antiquity of

Man.

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These considerations, it will be seen, enable us to place the origin of man at a much more remote geological epoch than has yet been thought possible. may even have lived in the Miocene or Eocene period, when not a single mammal was identical in form with any existing species. For, in the long series of ages during which these primeval animals were being slowly changed into the species which now inhabit the earth, the power which acted to modify them would only

affect the mental organization of man. His brain alone would have increased in size and complexity, and his cranium have undergone corresponding changes of form, while the whole structure of lower animals was being changed. This will enable us to understand how the fossil crania of Denise and Engis agree so closely with existing forms, although they undoubtedly existed in company with large mammalia now extinct. The Neanderthal skull may be a specimen of one of the lowest races then existing, just as the Australians are the lowest of our modern epoch. We have no reason to suppose that mind and brain and skull modification, could go on quicker than that of the other parts of the organization; and we must therefore look back very far in the past, to find man in that early condition in which his mind was not sufficiently developed, to remove his body from the modifying influence of external conditions and the cumulative action of "natural selection." I believe, therefore, that there is no à priori reason against our finding the remains of man or his works. in the tertiary deposits. The absence of all such remains in the European beds of this age has little weight, because, as we go further back in time, it is natural to suppose that man's distribution over the surface of the earth was less universal than at present.

Besides, Europe was in a great measure submerged during the tertiary epoch; and though its scattered islands may have been uninhabited by man, it by no means follows that he did not at the same time exist in warm or tropical continents. If geologists can point

out to us the most extensive land in the warmer regions of the earth, which has not been submerged since Eocene or Miocene times, it is there that we may expect to find some traces of the very early progenitors of man. It is there that we may trace back the gradually decreasing brain of former races, till we come to a time when the body also begins materially to differ. Then we shall have reached the starting point of the human family. Before that period, he had not mind enough to preserve his body from change, and would, therefore, have been subject to the same comparatively rapid modifications of form as the other mammalia.

Their Bearing on the Dignity and Supremacy of Man.

If the views I have here endeavoured to sustain have any foundation, they give us a new argument for placing man apart, as not only the head and culminating point of the grand series of organic nature, but as in some degree a new and distinct order of being. From those infinitely remote ages, when the first rudiments of organic life appeared upon the earth, every plant, and every animal has been subject to one great law of physical change. As the earth has gone through its grand cycles of geological, climatal, and organic progress, every form of life has been subject to its irresistible action, and has been continually, but imperceptibly moulded into such new shapes as would preserve their harmony with the ever-changing universe. No living thing could escape this law of its being; none (except, perhaps, the simplest and most rudi

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