The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1879-12-03
PHILIP SOBER.
AGE

task for denying the doctrine that man
is evolved from the irrational animals. "
The Independent declared that such Ian
guage on the part of the Herald and Pres
Byter "is incredibly foolish and injuri-
GUS, and proceeded to remark in a very
oracular way that we are taught in all
our best schools, by our scientific author
tiles, almost without exception, that man
is, at least so far as his physical nature is
concerned, evolved from the irrational
animals. We observed, in commenting
on this declaration of the Independent,
that it is notorious that the evolutionists
have failed to connect man with the If
rational animals, and stated that Prof.
Virchow and other scientists equally emf
nent have admitted all attempts in this
direction to have been signal failures.
We have seen since these comments Of
the CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN were pub
Iished, an account of a discussion on the
subject of the antiquity Of man, which took
place recently in the Victoria Institute in
London, on the occasion of the reading of
paper by Prof Hughes, WOOdwardian
Professor of Geology in Cambridge Uni
versity. In this paper Prof, Hughes re-
views in detail the evidence for the oc-
currence of traces of man in the Pliocene
and Miocene strata, and in the glacial
drift, and his paper concludes with the
admission that the evidence has com
pletely broken down in all cases where
it has been attempted to assign man to a
period more remote than the post-glacial
gravels. Prof. Hughes is, nevertheless,
a firm believer that great lapse Of time
has occurred since these "post-glacial
gravels" were deposited. At this date,
however, whether it were four thousand
or one hundred thousand years ago, man
was as completely developed as he is now.
There was another paper read at the
same meeting from another leading Brit
ish scientist-perhaps the most eminent
anthropologist in Great Britain, Professor
w. Boyd Dawkins, F R. S., also firm
believer in the antiquity theory, and who
has written a great deal on the subject;
who, indeed, up to 1875, believed that
traces of man had been found in the gla-
cial boulder-clay in the Victoria Cave in
Yorkshire But, so far as any indica-
tons of man in the tertiary beds or in
the glacial deposits are concerned, Prof
Daw1ins expressed himself as now fully
in accord with Prof Hughes. Here is
his language: As the evidence stands
at present there is no proof, on the con-
tinent or in this country, of man having
lived in this part of the world before the
middle stage of the PIeistocene [Quater-
nary age, when most of the living NAM
malta were then alive
We hope the Independent will, there
fore, candidly confess the error into which
it has fallen. DR.. John Evans, author of
the Ancient Stone Implements, etc,
agrees with the foregoing authorities.
In fact we do not know of a single prom
inent anthropologist in Great Britain who
holds different opinion.
For if there is no trace Of man behind
the Engis and Neanderthal skulls, and
the fossil man of Mentone, and the skulls
from Les Eyzies, and the Belgian caves;
if there are no traces of any human be-
ings older than the Canstadt race, the
Cro-Magnon race, and the races of Fur
fooz, described by NJ. De Quatrefages !;
then what? Well, what do the great
pal@ontologists and anthropologists say
of these skulls?
Of the Engis skull, Prof. Huxley has
declared that there is no mark Of deg
radiation about any part of its structure"
that "it is a fair average skull which
might have belonged to philosopher, or
might have contained the thOughtless
brains of a savage"
Professor Owen pronounced the skulls
from the rock-shelter Of Bruniquel to ex-
emplify "t the distinct characteristics of
the human genus and species as decidedly
as do the corresponding parts Of the pre-
sent races"