e comfort in the conviction that in
the long run the conclusions reached will be right, in accordance with
fact, in accordance with truth, and that no permanent interest of
religion or morals can suffer.

But we beg pardon for holding the reader so long by the button, while
Sir Charles Lyell and his book have been kept in the background. These
thoughts have been upon our mind for many months, and we have felt
impelled to give utterance to them here.

The publication of this work we regard as an eventful matter in the
history of modern thought. The time could not have been far distant when
what we may call the geological history of man on this planet, must have
come before the popular mind; and it is certainly a matter of
congratulation that one of the most venerable, indefatigable, cautious,
and successful investigators of modern times has undertaken the task of
giving to the public a full and labored _resume_ of the evidence which
has accumulated on the subject. Not unfrequently are the bigotry and
prejudice of well-meaning religious people intensified by the imprudent
zeal of the Hotspurs of science. True science can always afford to bide
its time, and make haste slowly.

Respecting the work itself, we begin by saying that the theme proposed
is a perfectly legitimate one for science. It is entirely pertinent to
science to undertake to search for the hidden traces of man's former
history, if there be any. It is no dreamland or cloudland which it
proposes to explore. It is no Quixotic adventure which it has gotten up
to astonish and alarm the vulgar. If our human ancestors have lived
fifty or one hundred thousand years longer on this planet than was
generally supposed, it is quite likely they have left some traces behind
them. And if so, it is perfectly legitimate for science to gather,
collate, and interpret those traces. And from what we know of her past
achievements, we may assure ourselves that if man has had such a
pre-historic existence, science will most undoubtedly prove it. She has
proved beyond all sane contradiction the great age of the earth. She has
proved in like manner the vast extent of the universe in space. She has
proved the existence of manifold forms of animal life on this planet for
countless ages before the incoming of man, according to the popular
chronology. She has proved, approximately, the order and succession of
animal life as it arose, and the forms it assumed as the long cycles of
ages