Part 2 (2/2)

THE STONE AGE. { 2nd. Epoch of migrated existing animals (or the { reindeer epoch).

{ 3rd. Epoch of domesticated existing animals (or the { polished-stone epoch).

THE METAL AGE. { 1st. The Bronze Epoch.

{ 2nd. The Iron Epoch.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 'Nouvelles Recherches sur la Coexistence de l'Homme et des grands Mammiferes Fossiles reputes characteristiques de la derniere periode Geologique,' by ed. Lartet, 'Annales des Sciences Naturelles,' 4th ser.

vol. xv. p. 256.

[2] 1 vol. 8vo., Paris, 1869; V. Palme.

[3] 2 vols. 12mo., 3rd edit., Paris, 1859; Lagny freres.

[4] Pamphlet, 8vo., Paris, 1869; Savy.

[5] It should rather have been said, that the ultimate and well-considered judgment of the English geologists was against the authenticity of the Moulin-Quignon jaw.--See Dr. Falconer's 'Palaeontological Memoirs,' vol. ii. p. 610; and Sir C. Lyell's 'Antiquity of Man,' 3rd ed. p. 515. (Note to Eng. Trans.)

THE STONE AGE.

I.

THE EPOCH OF EXTINCT SPECIES OF ANIMALS; OR, OF THE GREAT BEAR AND MAMMOTH.

CHAPTER I.

The earliest Men--The type of Man in the Epoch of Animals of extinct Species--Origin of Man--Refutation of the Theory which derives the Human Species from the Ape.

Man must have lived during the time in which the last representatives of the ancient animal creation--the mammoth, the great bear, the cave-hyaena, the _Rhinoceros tichorinus_, &c.--were still in existence.

It is this earliest period of man's history which we are now about to enter upon.

We have no knowledge of a precise nature with regard to man at the period of his first appearance on the globe. How did he appear upon the earth, and in what spot can we mark out the earliest traces of him? Did he first come into being in that part of the world which we now call Europe, or is it the fact that he made his way to this quarter of our hemisphere, having first seen the light on the great plateaux of Central Asia?

This latter opinion is the one generally accepted. In the work which will follow the present volume we shall see, when speaking of the various races of man, that the majority of naturalists admit nowadays one common centre of creation for all mankind. Man, no doubt, first came into being on the great plateaux of Central Asia, and thence was distributed over all the various habitable portions of our globe. The action of climate and the influences of the locality which he inhabited have, therefore, determined the formation of the different races--white, black, yellow, and red--which now exist with all their infinite subdivisions.

But there is another question which arises, to which it is necessary to give an immediate answer, for it has been and is incessantly agitated with a degree of vehemence which may be explained by the nature of the discussion being of so profoundly personal a character as regards all of us: Was man created by G.o.d complete in all parts, and is the human type independent of the type of the animals which existed before him? Or, on the contrary, are we compelled to admit that man, by insensible transformations, and gradual improvements and developments, is derived from some other animal species, and particularly that of the ape?

This latter opinion was maintained at the commencement of the present century by the French naturalist, de Lamarck, who laid down his views very plainly in his work ent.i.tled 'Philosophie Zoologique.' The same theory has again been taken up in our own time, and has been developed, with no small supply of facts on which it might appear to be based, by a number of scientific men, among whom we may mention Professor Carl Vogt in Switzerland, and Professor Huxley in England.

We strongly repudiate any doctrine of this kind. In endeavouring to establish the fact that man is nothing more than a developed and improved ape, an orang-outang or a gorilla, somewhat elevated in dignity, the arguments are confined to an appeal to anatomical considerations. The skull of the ape is compared with that of primitive man, and certain characteristics of a.n.a.logy, more or less real, being found to exist between the two bony cases, the conclusion has been arrived at that there has been a gradual blending between the type of the ape and that of man.

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