The Antiquity of Man | Page 2

pre-historic times:
the rest of the book is devoted to a consideration of the connection
between the facts previously stated and Darwin's theory of the origin of
species by variation and natural selection. The keynote of Lyell's work,
throughout his life, was observation. Lyell was no cabinet geologist; he
went to nature and studied phenomena at first hand. Possessed of

abundant leisure and ample means he travelled far and wide, patiently
collecting material and building up the modern science of physical
geology, whose foundations had been laid by Hutton and Playfair.
From the facts thus collected he drew his inferences, and if later
researches showed these inferences to be wrong, unlike some of his
contemporaries, he never hesitated to say so. Thus and thus only is true
progress in science attained.
Lyell is universally recognised as the leader of the Uniformitarian
school of geologists, and it will be well to consider briefly what is
implied in this term. The principles of Uniformitarianism may be
summed up thus: THE PRESENT IS THE KEY TO THE PAST. That
is to say, the processes which have gone on in the past were the same in
general character as those now seen in operation, though probably
differing in degree. This theory is in direct opposition to the ideas of
the CATASTROPHIC school, which were dominant at the beginning
of the nineteenth century. The catastrophists attributed all past changes
to sudden and violent convulsions of nature, by which all living beings
were destroyed, to be replaced by a fresh creation. At least such were
the tenets of the extremists. In opposition to these views the school of
Hutton and Lyell introduced the principle of continuity and
development. There is no discrepancy between Uniformitarianism and
evolution. The idea of Uniformitarianism does not imply that things
have always been the same; only that they were similar, and between
these two terms there is a wide distinction. Evolution of any kind
whatever naturally implies continuity, and this is the fundamental idea
of Lyellian geology.
In spite, however, of this clear and definite conception of natural and
organic evolution, in all those parts of his works dealing with
earth-history, with the stratified rocks and with the organisms
entombed in them, Lyell adopted a plan which has now been
universally abandoned. He began with the most Recent formations and
worked backwards from the known to the unknown. To modern readers
this is perhaps the greatest drawback to his work, since it renders
difficult the study of events in their actual sequence. However, it must
be admitted that, taking into account the state of geological knowledge
before his time, this course was almost inevitable. The succession of
the later rocks was fairly well known, thanks to the labours of William

Smith and others, but in the lower part of the sequence of stratified
rocks there were many gaps, and more important still, there was no
definite base. Although this want of a starting point has been largely
supplied by the labours of Sedgwick, Murchison, De la Beche, Ramsay,
and a host of followers, still considerable doubt prevails as to which
constitutes the oldest truly stratified series, and the difficulty has only
been partially circumvented by the adoption of an arbitrary base-line,
from which the succession is worked out both upwards and downwards.
So the problem is only removed a stage further back. In the study of
human origins a similar difficulty is felt with special acuteness; the
beginnings must of necessity be vague and uncertain, and the farther
back we go the fainter will naturally be the traces of human handiwork
and the more primitive and doubtful those traces when discovered.
The reprinting of the "Antiquity of Man" is particularly appropriate at
the present time, owing to the increased attention drawn to the subject
by recent discoveries. Ever since the publication of the "Origin of
Species" and the discussions that resulted from that publication, the
popular imagination has been much exercised by the possible existence
of forms intermediate between the apes and man; the so-called
"Missing Link." Much has been written on this subject, some of it
well-founded and some very much the reverse. The discovery of the
Neanderthal skull is fully described in this volume, and this skull is
certainly of a low type, but it is more human than ape-like. The same
remark applies still more strongly to the Engis skull, the man of Spy,
the recently discovered Sussex skull, and other well-known examples
of early human remains. The Pithecanthropus of Java alone shows
perhaps more affinity to the apes. The whole subject has been most
ably discussed by Professor Sollas in his recent book entitled "Ancient
Hunters."
The study of Palaeolithic flint implements has been raised to a fine art.
Both in England and France a regular succession of primitive