d fully in the
concluding chapters of my "Story of the Earth."

If man is thus so very variable, and if many of his leading varieties
have existed for a very long time, does not the fact that we have but
one species afford very strong evidence that species change only
within fixed limits, and do not pass over into new specific types.
Viewed in this way, variability within the specific limits becomes in
itself one of the strongest arguments against the doctrine of descent
with modification as a mode of origination of new species.

Let us now add to all this the farther consideration, so well
illustrated in the "Reliquiae Aquitanicae" of Christy and Lartet, that
the oldest-known men of the caves and gravels may be placed in one of
the varieties, and this the most widely distributed, of modern man,
and we have a further argument which tells most strongly against the
assumption either of the extreme antiquity or of the unlimited
variability of the human species.

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 1: Argyll's "Primeval Man."]

[Footnote 2: Essays on Theism, 1875.]

[Footnote 3: John i., 9.]

[Footnote 4: Hebrews xi., 3.]

[Footnote 5: I avail myself of the condensed translation in Bancroft's
"Native Races," vol. iii. The original French translation of Brasseur du
Bourbourg is more full.]

[Footnote 6: The Feathered Serpent is perhaps the representative of the
Dragon and Serpent in the Semitic version; but has not the same evil
import, and his color gave sacredness to blue and green stones, as the
turquois and emerald, both in North and South America, and perhaps also
in Asia and Africa.]

[Footnote 7: I do not think it necessary to attach any value to the
doubts of certain schools of criticism as to the Mosaic authorship of
the Pentateuch. Whatever quibbles may be raised on isolated texts, no
rational student can doubt that we have in these books a collection of
authentic documents of the Exodus. They are absolutely inexplicable on
any other supposition.]

[Footnote 8: "Cosmos," Otte's translation.]

[Footnote 9: Hamilton, "Royal Preacher."]

[Footnote 10: Harvey, "Nereis Boreali Americana."]

[Footnote 11: Osburn, "Monumental History of Egypt."]

[Footnote 12: On this subject I may refer naturalists to the intimate
acquaintance with animals and their habits, indicated by manner of their
use as sacred emblems, and as symbols in hieroglyphic writing. Another
illustration is afforded by the Mosaic narrative of t