By this proposition I simply mean that Man must have witnessed a cosmic geological catastrophe of some character and of some dimensions--the true nature and probable limits of this catastrophe ought to be the chief point of all geological inquiry. But instead of this method, instead of finding out whether our present world was ever a witness of such an event, the founders of the science began at the little end of an assumed succession of life (involving a preposterous supernatural knowledge of the past), and gradually worked up a habit of explaining everything in terms of Uniformity long decades before they would acknowledge that Man or the present order of things had anything to do with this fossil world. The evidence on this latter point finally became overwhelming; but with their habit of Uniformity well mastered, and their long, single file of life succession all tabulated off and infallibly fixed, modern geologists have hitherto refused to look at the whole science from this new point of view, or to reconstruct geological theory if need be in accordance with a true modern induction. And in this proposition the reader will understand that I believe in what is called "Tertiary man." I am aware that a few scientists still contest this view, but the evidence (from the standpoint of current theory) seems to me to be overwhelmingly against them. But in this fact, if it be a fact, that Man lived under the wholly strange and different conditions of "Pliocene" or perhaps "Miocene times," is =THE VERY STRONGEST POSSIBLE ARGUMENT= that I can conceive of for the necessity of a complete reconstruction of geological theory--I mean, of course, apart altogether from the preposterous way in which the life succession was assumed and built up and then treated as an actual fact. It was when this grim fact of Man's inseparable connection with the fossil world was borne in upon me, that I began to realize the possibility and imperative necessity of reconstructing the science on a truly inductive basis. I shall not undertake to give a complete up-to-date argument for "Miocene" or even "Pliocene Man." The subject is still under discussion as to =just how far back= along this thin line of receding life forms Man actually did live, and from the peculiar methods now in vogue which are so wholly subjective in character, it would seem to be capable of settlement in almost any way one chooses. However, whole volumes are being written on the subject, and the end is not yet. But there is no denying that human remains have frequently been found in strata which, but for their presence, would have been assigned a place far back in "Tertiary time." The existence of strong evidence for "Tertiary Man" no one would think of denying.