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Pleistocene and post-Tertiary. These now have become a sort of debateable ground between geology and archæology. Man, his works and remains, are undoubtedly at the present time the problem that these two sciences have in hand. Not so very long ago it was universally received, as an almost axiomatic truth, that the appearance of man among the forms of creation was wholly subsequent to the greatest revolutions of the globe. The fossil human skeleton of Guadaloupe, and suchlike apparent indications of high antiquity, were pointed to by way of caution against drawing hasty inferences as to high geological antiquity from the mere fact of fossilization. It was the discovery of the flint flakes and implements in the drift at Abbeville and elsewhere, that first forced the conclusion upon the scientific world that a very much higher antiquity in geological time must be conceded to the human race; and since then, the combined labours of archæologists and geologists have accumulated a fund of information. which is capable of being digested, at least provisionally, and until further discoveries modify our conclusions, into something of a system. The question of man's antiquity had much to struggle with in the way of pre-conceived opinion and prejudice, which, though unscientific, was entitled on other grounds to respect; and it says much for the overwhelming amount and nature of the evidence that it has, so to say, forced conviction upon unwilling minds. The nature of the evidence on the subject is, first, the remains of the works and pursuits of man, and, where they can be found, such remains of his skeleton as furnish data for ethnographical classification; secondly, the genera and species of the animal remains which are associated with these human reliquiæ.

Turning to the latter kind of evidence we may say, with proximate certainty,

"If man's works occur along with the remains of the existing horse, ox, sheep, pig, and the like, we know that they are comparatively recent, and in all probability belong to the historic era. If, on the other hand, they are found accompanied by remains of extinct species of horses and oxen, we know they are of greater antiquity; and if such horses and oxen are not spoken of in history, or represented in human monuments, then we are entitled to regard them as pre-historic. Or, again, if they are associated with remains of the great Irish deer, the mammoth, mastodon, woolly rhinoceros, and other animals long since extinct, we feel assured that vast changes in physical geography have taken place since their entombment, and are entitled to assign them a still higher antiquity."-(P. 222.)

Granting this to be a fair way of putting the case, so far as gradations of antiquity are evidenced by the different animal remains with which the human relics are found associated, it is perhaps too much to argue a pre-historic origin for those whose remains are found along with animals only specifically distinct from existing kinds; for specific

distinctions are confessedly, by comparison, slight, and little likely to arrest the attention of an unscientific age: while, on the other hand, it is dangerous to argue a very remote antiquity even from association with the mammoth and extinct rhinoceros. Surely the discovery of the frozen rhinoceros carcase in 1772, and of the hairy mammoth in 1800 (see Owen's "British Fossil Mammalia," pp. 264 and 351), while it points to a pre-historic fauna in those boreal latitudes, forbids us to relegate the lifetime of these monsters to an unlimited antiquity.

The evidence derived from man himself and his works resolves itself into an investigation of sepulchral barrows, shell-mounds,"kitchen-middens" as they are called by the Danes-the scenes of primæval feastings of the northern aborigines,-pile-dwellings in lakes, and implements, whether for war or the chase, made of chipped flints, carved horns, bronze, or iron. The conclusions hitherto arrived at, based on the fair assumption that greater skill-as evidenced, for example, in metallurgy-implies greater civilization, and that civilization is a tardy process, and requires length of time, group man's history into three ages, the stone, the bronze, and the iron, and fix his appearance among the forms of life on the globe in the Pleistocene period at the close of the Tertiary epoch. But the question is still in its infancy, and before the regions of Asia, which may be presumed to have been man's home before he migrated into the far West and North, have been explored and interpreted, it is idle to speculate as to the chronology of his pre-historic history, or to assign any number of years to the period within which he has been a tenant of this our earth.

As a conclusion to the strictly geological part of his work, Mr. Page proceeds to sum up the teaching of the rocks as to the order and succession of life. Without charging him with misstatement, or even with conscious suppressio veri, we cannot but think that the succession, as he finds it, squares a little more obligingly with his foregone conclusions than the facts of the case warrant. He seems to ignore the sudden jumps and gaps which take place in the history of life as chronicled by Palæontology. As an example of the former, compare the scanty fauna of the Lingula schists, with the teeming and varied life of the Llandeilo flags which immediately succeed. To illustrate the latter, we have but to trace the origines of the mammal tribe. Starting with the Microlestes of the upper Trias of Würtemburg, we come upon a nest of mammalian jaws in the Stonesfield slate, i. e., at the bottom of the Oolite. Some of these are undoubtedly Marsupial, others are presumably Insectivorous, and belong to the placental group. Then we have no more mammals, till the Purbeck beds (upper oolite) yield us more Insectivores. Then comes another long pause, and at last, with the Tertiaries, we are at once inundated with a host of mammals, beginning in the lower Eocene with remains

of Quadrumana,-the highest member of the group, with the sole exception of man. Surely the teaching of the rocks, in the present state of our knowledge, seems rather to point to something like a theory of representation than to progressive development. Palæozoic age fish all but monopolize the domain of vertebrate life. In the Mesozoic period reptile life is in the ascendant, assuming forms that make it alike the denizen of earth, air, and sea, and so, as it were, discharge the function of beast, bird, and fish: while in the Tertiary age the true balance of vertebrate life is first adjusted. The sequel of the chapter, however, which states temperately and clearly the favourite modern hypothesis of vital development, betrays the reason why Mr. Page is disturbed by none of these breaks of continuity in his scheme of geological life-succession. The geological argument is to be used as a main prop to support the development theory. One cannot but regret that so philosophical a geologist should have suffered himself thus unconsciously to follow the fatal, insidious, and now, alas! common propensity to theorize, when he should be patiently collecting and digesting facts.

Nor can we agree with him in his righteous indignation at the "senseless and unworthy outery which has been raised against these hypotheses of vital development." "Investigators," he tells us, "perceive that certain plans pervade the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and that the whole is inseparably associated in one vital scheme. They learn from geology that it has taken a certain order of ascent in time, from lower to higher forms" (p. 247). But do we learn this from geology? Does the testimony of the rocks, as they are,—for we have nothing to do with filling up the gaps in the order conjecturally, we cannot admit that further investigation would probably supply the missing links,-does the testimony of the rocks lead the unbiassed mind to this conclusion? We venture to say, No. And this is the weak point in the development theory. It may be true; it is very ingenious; it is an exceedingly beautiful speculation. But its evidence is utterly fragmentary, and its postulates are extortionate. This strikes one most forcibly and painfully when our author applies the theory to the future prospects of the human race. "Physiology," he says, can prove a tendency to variations in existing genera and species, and if such a tendency can be demonstrated, no matter how slight and slow, the widest subsequent divergence, even to the extent of new families and orders, is only a question of time and continuation" (p. 258). But while this tendency to variation is a truth of physiology, is it not also true that there is an equal,-nay, overpowering, tendency in the variety to return to the original type? And what particle of evidence is there of varieties ever having in fact drifted into new species, genera, or orders, either within the scope of

history or as fairly deducible from the geologic record as it exists. But, he tells us, it is vain to argue against it from the silence of history, for history after all goes back but a short way, and scientific observation goes back little more than half a century. If it is vain to argue against it, surely it is unphilosophical to argue for it, unsupported by any attestation of man's observation; surely the argument is two-edged, and will not bear grasping. He proceeds,

"But if the introduction of new genera and species cannot be positively proven, we know that numerous forms have disappeared from certain localities, and that several (the dinornis, dodo, &c.), within a comparatively recent period, have become altogether extinct. As extinction and creation ever went side by side in the past, so the fair presumption is that extinction is attended by a similar creation in the present."

Is there, we reply, any single instance authenticated, or even suspected, of such new creation, or of the appearance of anything like a new species among the existing forms of life, except we so describe the varieties which man by artificial culture and breeding has produced, which are outside of the domain of nature altogether? Truly it is lamentable that science should have come to this. It is all hypothesis, all presumption. Cicero tells us that the Academics were content to have reached quod probabile; but we also read, on respectable authority, παραπλήσιον φαίνεται μαθηματικοῦ τε πιθανολογοῦντος ἀποδέχεσθαι καὶ ῥητορικὸν ἀποδείξεις ἀπαιτεῖν.* “Tis as bad to require demonstration from the rhetorician, as to allow the mathematician(may we not add, the scientific man?)—to talk probabilities." This is nothing better than the "romance of science." The only criticism one can make on it is, "c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la science.”

It is indeed to be regretted that Mr. Page did not rule his propensity to speculate, by the wise maxim he laid down in the outset (p. 43)," Our object in these sketches is rather to explain what is known, than to discuss what is questionable." It is a pity he ever "rose upon a wind of prophecy," and thought of asking, "What of the future?" What is the future to us? Our business is with the past and its teachings,

τὸ δὲ προκλύειν,

ἐπεὶ γένοιτ' ἂν ἤλυσις, προχαιρέτω

ἴσον δὲ τῷ προστένειν.

We wish, indeed, he could be induced to make an absolute excision of at least his last chapter, if not of the last two, in his next editions, for they are, in our opinion, the one serious blot on perhaps the most lucid, attractive, and readable scientific book it has ever been our good fortune to fall in with.

J. MITCHINSON.

* Arist., "Eth. Nic.," i., § 3.

† Esch., "Ag.," 251.

VOL. IV.

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Avesta: die Heiligen Schriften der Parsen. Aus dem Grundtexte übersetzt
mit steter Rucksicht auf die Tradition. Von Dr. FRIEDRICH SPIEGEL.
3 Bände, Svo. Leipzig. 1852-1863.
Zoroastrische Studien. Abhandlungen zur Mythologie und Sagengeschichte
des alten Iran. Von FR. WINDISCHMANN. Nach dem Tode des
Verfasser herausgegeben von FR. SPIEGEL. Svo. Berlin. 1853.
Die Gáthás des Zarathustra. übersetzt und erläutert. Von MARTIN
HAUG. Svo. Leipzig. 1858-1860.

By ARTHUR HENRY Printed for Muncherjee

Avesta: the Religious Books of the Parsees. From Professor Spiegel's
German Translation of the Original MSS.
BLEECK, Author of a Persian Grammar.
Hormusjee Cama, by S. AUSTIN. Hertford. 1864.

Zendavesta; or, the Religious Books of the Zoroastrians. Edited and
Translated, with a Dictionary, Grammar, &c., by N. L. WESTER-
GAARD, &c.
Vol. I., "The Zend Texts." Folio. Copenhagen.
1852-1854.

The Parsi Religion as contained in the Zand-Avasta, and Propounded and
Defended by the Zoroastrians of India and Persia, unfolded, refuted,
and contrasted with Christianity. By JOHN WILSON, D.D., M.RA.S.,
Missionary of the Church of Scotland, Bombay. Svo. Bombay. 1943.

XTREMES, according to an old adage, usually meet. And there are few things in which the contrast is stronger than between the extreme scepticism of a certain school in regard to all the contents of the Bible, and its easy faith in some other departments of literature. There is generally floating about the world some detached or semidetached question, on which this ready faith is exhibited. At one time, the severe critics, who refused to acknowledge Moses as the author of the Pentateuch-which they would relegate to the time of the Captivity, would swallow Ossian quite whole, and believe that thousands of lines had been correctly transmitted by oral tradition. for thirteen centuries.

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This rejection of the strongest evidence is quite compatible with

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