("Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature") Cambridge 1910
chapters 6 and 7.)

From a study of the evolution of plants and of the lower animals it
was an easy and obvious transition to man, and this step was soon
taken. Since in his physical structure man shows so close a
resemblance to the higher animals it was a natural conclusion that
the laws governing the development of the one should apply also to
the other, in spite of preconceived opinions derived from
authority. Unfortunately the times were then hardly ripe for a calm
and logical treatment of this question: prejudice in many cases
took the place of argument, and the result was too often an
undignified squabble instead of a scientific discussion. However,
the dogmatism was not by any means all on one side. The disciples
as usual went farther than the master, and their teaching when
pushed to extremities resulted in a peculiarly dreary kind of
materialism, a mental attitude which still survives to a certain
extent among scientific and pseudo-scientific men of the old
school. In more Recent times this dogmatic agnosticism of the
middle Victorian period has been gradually replaced by speculations
of a more positive type, such as those of the Mendelian school in
biology and the doctrines of Bergson on the philosophical side.
With these later developments we are not here concerned.

In dealing with the evolution and history of man as with that of
any other animal, the first step is undoubtedly to collect the
facts, and this is precisely what Lyell set out to do in the
"Antiquity of Man." The first nineteen chapters of the book are
purely an empirical statement of the evidence then available as to
the existence of man in pre-historic times: the rest of the book is