celebrated in their own native
songs, which Homer at a date but little later[124] wove into his
magnificent poem, and idealized and exaggerated. The Trojans
worshipped an owl-headed goddess--the Athena of the Homeric poems;
and from symbols found are believed also to have had the worship of a
sacred tree, and of fire or of the Sun. All of these are widespread
superstitions over both the Old and New World. But while Troy
flourished there were barbarous nations not far off still in the stone
age; and when the city had fallen, these, possibly in successive
hordes, took possession of the fertile plain and used the old city as
their stronghold, perhaps till the foundation of the Greek city about
650 B.C. I have sketched in some detail these interesting discoveries,
as they so clearly illustrate an actual succession of ages, and so
conclusively show the uncertainty of the classification into ages of
stone and metal, except when taken in connection with the precise
circumstances of each locality.

I have referred above only to the question of historic or postdiluvian
man. We have still to consider what remains exist of antediluvian man.
These may be studied in connection with our third head of geological
evidences of man's antiquity; for if the Mosaic narrative be true, the
diluvial catastrophe must have constituted a physical separation
between historic man and prehistoric; since, in so far as antediluvian
ages are concerned, all are prehistoric or mythical everywhere except
in the sacred history itself. Antediluvian men may thus in geology be
Pleistocene as distinguished from modern, or Palaeocosmic as
distinguished from Neocosmic.[125]

2. _Language in Relation to the Antiquity of Man._--In many animals
the voice has a distinctive character; but in man it has an importance
altogether peculiar. The gift of speech is one of his sole
prerogatives, and identity in its mode of exercise is not only the
strongest proof of similarity of psychical constitution, but more than
any other character marks identity of origin. The tongues of men are
many and various; and at first sight this diversity may, as indeed it
often does, convey the impression of radical diversity of race. But
modern philological investigations have shown many and unexpected
links of connection in vocabulary or grammatical structure, or both,
between languages apparently the most dissimilar. I do not here refer
to the vague and fanciful parallels with which our